Fade (30 page)

As darkness came on again, he tried a few unsuccessful times to swallow, still battling his brain for the simplest of acts. As he began to fall unconscious, Jonas finally felt it all slide down his throat. The sun swirled into three, then four. Voices became distant songs from long ago. His own body seemed to float as he drifted away. Part of him even believed he saw Mira’s body lurch back to life.

TWENTY-TWO

A
ngela flinched at hands touching her. She felt her eyes bugging out of her head when she looked over to see Cynthia. The sounds around her were a confusion—a loud blur. Cynthia was lying in the sand in front of her, looking battered, but somehow smiling. Angela was staring right at Cynthia, seeing her, but the information was having a tough time registering.

“What do you need?” Cynthia’s voice seemed to come a moment or two after her lips moved. It had the quality of a voice coming through a string and tin can.

“I’m supposed to be dead.” Angela felt like she was screaming, but Cynthia furrowed her brow and leaned in.

Cynthia’s head turned and Angela followed it to see Mira wailing, a bright blade ripping through her chest.

“It’s going to be okay, Angela,” Cynthia said, sounding unconvinced. Angela’s head floated to where her words were coming from.

Angela wondered if this were tattered edge of her consciousness, hallucinating a happy ending before unraveling into the Mystery. She had felt herself dying. Sensation had given way to a new way of being as the last breath shot from her lungs. Life had been so loud and then there was quiet. Peace? Then there was this. What was this? The obvious answer seemed impossible: She was alive.
Holy shit.

Then, the sandy thing that had been looming behind them, which hadn’t registered until it was tumbling into a heap behind Cynthia, slid like a curtain to reveal Aern. He bent over them, his eyes now a penetrating pink. “This is over,” he said. But it was
her
voice. Angela had heard it scream in pain as she had burned her. Her mind reeled at another impossible realization: the Queen had a new body.

“It’s her,” Angela said.

Cynthia shakily stood. Angela wasn’t sure if that was possible for her yet. She took a breath, noticing Jonas writhing in the sand where he had been standing moments earlier. She heard Lucy scream his name as Angela pushed herself up on numb arms and managed to get to her feet beside Cynthia. Angela wasn’t sure if her legs would hold her for long, but the bell for a final round had been rung.

***

It wasn't seeing that Aern’s armor was powered up alone that worried her, but that there was no telling what Mira’s possessing him would do to give him an even sharper edge (As if he needed one). As much as this was her central problem, Cynthia kept glancing over at Jonas. His torso still bounced awkwardly with breath, which was a reluctant check in the plus column, but he was no longer trying to move.

“You two,” the voice startled Cynthia, “are the last things standing between me and this world?” A smile broke out on Aern’s face. “
Really
?”

It ticked Cynthia off just to see sarcasm cross Aern’s ugly face, and she was about to move to attack when her anger was sidelined at the sight of a dead Fade warrior floating through the air then dropping in front of Aern. This new Mira hissed and whipped her head to where Lucy stood several feet behind her.

“This is all that stood between us and you.” Lucy was smirking. It was obvious she wasn’t aware what had happened.

“Lucy, this isn’t Aern. It’s the Queen,” Cynthia said, her voice quaking.

Lucy chewed her lip for a moment, giving worried glances over at Jonas, and then narrowing her eyes. “We don’t have time for you.” A twirling whirlwind of sand opened up beneath Aern’s feet. Cynthia felt herself being pushed away from it along with Angela as Aern disappeared into the resulting hole. Then, the sand above was silent.

Lucy was already running to where Jonas lay about five yards to her right, looking over at Angela as she went. “I’m so happy you’re not dead,” she said.

Lucy stopped in front of him, her hands over her face. Cynthia started that way, then an explosion of sand turned her back around to see Mira smiling through Aern’s yellowed teeth as she crawled from the hole. Her pink eyes floated over to Lucy.

“No more of you,” she said, and jumped at the tiny girl.

Lucy’s arms shot out straight in front of her and she held the queen in mid-air, just as she had done to the warrior attempting to attack Jonas in the woods. But it only slowed the Aern-thing. Mira seemed to move through Lucy’s barrier as if it were set Jell-o rather than dried cement. Sweat popped out, newly minted beads on Lucy’s forehead. Mira loosed Aern’s sword from its scabbard and it came to life in slow-motion toward the girl. Cynthia ran in her direction, desperate to make it before the slow beast inside of Aern.

Then, as if hit, Aern’s body, Mira’s angry soul, was pushed sidelong, away from Lucy, as if by one of her mental blasts. But it wasn’t Lucy doing the blasting. Cynthia spun on her heel, her weak legs sliding down into the sand in her hurry. There, where he had been lying, in seeming near-death before, stood Jonas.

***

The blood had never so much as shown a hint of healing for Jonas’ brain after the Fade had butchered it. It had been among the first things the doctors on his Earth had tried. But that made sense now. The Fade hadn’t excised a chunk of his brain as they’d thought. The same tech the Fade used to slide the Wraith just out of reality kept his brain just
there
enough to trick his body and just
gone
enough to trick him and his doctors. Now, though, since Kah’en had turned that shield off, the blood could do its work in healing what it could of the damaged part of the brain that had been just out of touch with the rest for so long.

In his wildest imaginings, he wouldn’t have believed he’d ever be this strong again. He would have been reluctant to try something so fierce, so soon, if Lucy had not been in danger when he opened his eyes. To call using a telekinetic
push
fierce would have made the old him laugh, but it had been. He had pushed Aern with enough force to topple a building. He’d hit him hard enough to knock his powered armor offline and he’d seen that happen maybe three times during the war. None of those times had involved him.

Lucy was looking at him like he was suddenly made of cheese. He stalked with sure feet through the sand, watching as Aern pushed himself up with one arm, the other a broken, limp mess. Jonas stopped when he saw the arm begin to tremble as if it were filled with worms. Right before his eyes, he watched it heal. He’d been fighting the Fade for a long time and he’d never seen one capable of that. Then he noticed the glowing pinkish hue of Aern’s eyes.
Mira.

He understood at once what she and Aern’s pow-wow had been about before Jonas had used that blade to slice her insides up. Given enough time, she would have healed up nicely and taken over the world. But she didn’t have that kind of time. Aern had been accepting an offer to give up his life for hers.
Well, Jonas would just have to take that body away as well.

The armor blinked, sparked and came back online.
Dammit.
Angela, Lucy, and Cynthia were watching Jonas, waiting for his command. But he had no idea what the hell to do. He wasn’t about to send them in blind. Mira had almost killed Cynthia when she was half-dead, and Aern had done the same with that armor of his. So, even if Mira were only as strong as Aern in this new form—and the fact that she’d been able to heal his body strongly hinted otherwise—they were in for one heck of a fight.

“Lucy, stay out of her head,” he reminded her, “but hit her hard.”

During the war, the Fade crafted implants that kept Powereds like him and Lucy out of their minds. Stung like a bitch when you tried. And he’d already seen Lucy go down after trying to get into Mira where conscience feared to tread. So, attacking her mind was a fool’s errand. This would come down to strength and cunning. Mira was strong, but Jonas was of the mind that his girls were far more cunning than this blue bitch.

This new Mira walked toward them as if on a stroll. But her face hinted at stories of the murderous things she wished to do to them. He could tell Cynthia wanted to attack, but Jonas warned her to stay away. He needed to take the first punch in this armor, see how improved this new Aern was before he let them near her.

Mira’s voice played on Aern’s vocal chords. “I will strip the last of you to as near death as your kind can be and hang you like a banner before me as I erase your world.”

“You don’t really want this,” Angela said.

“I don’t think reasoning is among her gifts,” Jonas said.

Mira stopped. She stretched out Aern’s arms, showing that she had no more healing to do. It was an invitation to all comers. She had a strong, healthy body now. This was Mira at Aern’s best.

The ground rumbled. Jonas’ gaze went to Lucy, who was already staring at him. A single image appeared in his mind. He nodded and what remained of the crypt from which Mira had risen spun up and around her lifeless, four-armed form like a shield. Mira’s corpse swayed and then straightened as Lucy took full control. Mira screamed dissatisfaction at this, as the corpse of her former body began to run at her. Mira was hesitant to fight back at first, but soon seemed to give up any sentimental ideas about her own flesh and began to truly beat back against her animated corpse.

It was unpleasant, Jonas thought, but inspired. He watched the fight carefully, trying his best to soften Aern’s blows against the corpse. But Mira was strong—stronger than Aern. And Mira knew her weak points better than any of them and
they’d
managed to take her down. It wasn’t enough. When Lucy was able to get a punch in, she did so with gusto, using every bit of muscle left in those four arms. But after a few well-landed punches, Mira howled in frustration and latched onto one of those arms, tearing it off and tossing it aside before throwing herself at her former body. It would have been over in an instant, except that Lucy then did something Jonas had not expected.

Lucy stopped fighting back, instead she latched onto Aern’s powered armor with the remaining three arms. Both of the warriors pulled—Mira at the hole in the body’s side, and Lucy at the damaged armor Aern’s body wore. Mira growled in victory as the corpse’s chest tore open with several snaps and the gush of black and yellow curdled offal. Jonas saw the look of satisfaction on Aern’s face and feared for them all the moment before throwing his arm up in reaction to the sudden explosion of Aern’s armor as Lucy managed to break it open with the corpse’s arms.

Lucy yelled out, but it seemed as though it was mostly from surprise. He watched for Mira in the cloud of smoke. For a time he hoped perhaps she’d been blown right out of Aern’s body and into nothing. Then he watched as Mira stepped out of the haze, a small fire still burning on Aern’s right shoulder. The skin was burned away from most of Aern’s body. His chest was an open, gushing wound. But, as bad as his body looked, Jonas knew that Mira only needed time. But, he wondered, even as he moved that way, how they could kill something such as her. It was at this point Cynthia attempted an answer.

***

Cynthia didn’t think the Aern-thing could see yet because it reacted wildly to the chuff-chuff-chuff sound of her approach as she ran toward it. She knew Jonas had told her to stay back, but when she saw that armor explode… Well, she’d taken Aern before without the armor. But as she threw her fist at that bloodied face, she realized this was no Aern.

Cynthia could see Mira healing this body right in front of her. So she punched harder, trying to keep ahead. She could see Jonas helping her, keeping Aern down as best he could, blocking or slowing her punches, and she was grateful. Then two of Lucy’s sand monsters joined the fight. When Aern’s arm caught fire, she grinned. Angela.

She took her share of bruises, but they just made her dig deeper. The sand from Lucy’s puppet’s fists and Angela’s fire dissolved Aern’s flesh as fast as Mira could replace it. Jonas’ invisible strikes broke the same bones over and over. She threw her fists into Aern’s body again and again, only to watch Mira come back for more. This was the only way they’d succeed though. They had to win and win and win until some final victory came that they could walk away from. What they could not do was let up.

Jan’s pale, cold skin, Angela’s empty eyes, the world, the
life
, they all lost: she put her weight into each blow until her hands were wet and saturated with Aern. She would dig through his flesh until she found whatever corner that evil bitch was hiding in and rip it out into the daylight to burn away.

Lucy stopped first. Then Angela. It took Jonas and Cynthia a bit longer to realize that Mira’s host had stopped fighting back. Wet, dark sand had erupted from the center of what had been Aern’s torso. There had been no final promise of revenge from Mira; no heroic event that marked their win at the last moment. They had only fought and stumbled into victory. Her head buzzed with the recognition that it was over. But, Cynthia knew, even as she caught her breath, that each of them would drag it all along behind them like a corpse for as long as they lived.

She looked away from the body and out across the desert and wondered how far it went. She wondered how long her body could do without food or drink or people. She wondered what Jonas or Angela and Lucy might say as she walked away to try and get her to stay. Then the thought occurred to her that she’d been running away for a long time. And that these last few days were in no way her introduction to chaos.

She probably would have run, doe-eyed, into chaos’ razored arms a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Jan. She would have meandered endlessly after pointless sensation until she stumbled into a hole so deep she couldn’t get out. At least this chaos had meant something. She looked back down, but at the sand. The handle of Aern’s scepter stuck up next to his body. Cynthia stared at it for a moment before bending down to take it. It was still whole. She turned.