Sacrifices (16 page)

The door was locked.

She tried to turn back, tried to call for help, but there were people behind her, pushing her against the door. “It’s locked! It’s locked!” she screamed as she clawed her way through them going back the other way.

The front of the library was gone. Its ceiling and most of the front porch had been flung into the back room. She saw Zoey struggle out from under the fallen table, only to be struck and buried by a falling bookshelf. Zoey screamed. If the table hadn’t still been half on top of her, she would have been killed instantly.

The room exploded into flame as Zoey panicked and lashed out with her Gift. Anything burnable carried by the mage-born cyclone sparked and sizzled; water droplets spattered Spirit’s skin as windborne snow melted in the onrush of heat.

Kylee knocked Spirit sprawling as she ran past her toward their armored attackers. She held up her hands; Spirit felt a pang of vertigo, as if she was trapped in a plummeting elevator, as Kylee used her Gift to suck all the energy out of the room. The fire died. Even the wind died. The sudden silence was deafening.

“Come on!” Dylan screamed. Spirit dragged herself to her feet and staggered toward the back door—or where it had been. It was gone, and she didn’t care how as she slipped and skidded on the steps. They were covered with fresh snow. The day had been clear a moment before. Now they were trapped in a blizzard.

Spirit tried to count—who was here, who was still inside? There were twelve Committee members, plus whoever else had been in the library. She saw Brett and Juliette ahead of her, but the snow was so thick she wasn’t sure where the rest of the Townies were. She was here, and so was Dylan—

“Chris!”
Dylan shouted, and ran back up the stairs.

“Stay here!” Spirit shouted to the others, and followed him.

The momentary calm was over. As she neared the door, she was hit by a blast of wind; she staggered, gripping the door frame to drag herself back into the building again. Books and pieces of wreckage slammed into the walls, making thudding sounds audible even over the howl of the vortex. She held up her hands to protect her face. The floor beneath her thrummed; the whole building creaked and shivered as if it was going to come down at any moment—or take off.

Near the center of the room, Chris was trying to lift the bookshelf off of Zoey, wincing and ducking as flying debris struck him. Dylan was dragging at Chris’s arm, trying to get him to leave—Spirit could tell Dylan was Jaunting everything he could to keep it from hitting the two of them—the three of them. She lurched forward—there was a calm spot in the center of the ring of wind—and grabbed Chris.

“It’s a storm! Chris! Stop the storm!” He stared at her, wild-eyed, then nodded. She only hoped his Gift was strong enough to do it.

Where’s Kylee?

Kylee was standing in the wreckage of the outer room, facing down one of the Shadow Knights. The monstrous armored figure wavered as she sucked enough energy from it to make the illusion start to break up. Then it reached out and swatted Kylee—or seemed to—sending her flying. Kylee hit the wall of wind behind her as if it were an actual wall, but fell through it an instant later to land sprawling on the floor.

Spirit ran toward her, staggering as she entered the tornado again. Kylee was already up before Spirit got halfway across the room. She was bleeding from a dozen minor injuries, and beneath the blood, her face was a mask of rage. Suddenly Spirit was as afraid of Kylee as she was of the Shadow Knights. The power of an Energy Mage could kill: they manipulated energy—including life energy. Kylee started forward, clearly intending to renew her attack on the Shadow Knight.

“No!” Spirit screamed.

She didn’t dare touch Kylee. The air around Kylee was so cold it smoked; she was drawing the energy out of everything around her, and if Spirit touched her she’d be dead instantly.

But before Kylee could reach the doorway, it burst into flame.

This wasn’t the panic-stricken lashing out of a half-trained teenaged Fire Witch. This was fully controlled power. The sudden blast of furnace heat made Spirit stagger backward. The fire was licking over the walls, sucked along them by the vortex—in a moment everything in the room would be on fire.

“Stop it!” Spirit shouted, gasping for breath. She knew she couldn’t make herself heard over the noise, but Kylee glanced toward her, lips drawn back in a fierce smile. She nodded as if she understood.

Spirit looked around wildly. Brett and Juliette were outside—who was still in here?

There.

She saw two figures huddled in the corner—Kennedy and Brenda. She ran to them. When she tried to pull Kennedy to her feet, Kennedy fought her.

“You’re going to die!” Spirit screamed into her face. She couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice over the roar of the wind and the fire. Despite all Kylee could do, the fire was gaining. “You’re going to die if you don’t move!” She grabbed Kennedy and threw her as hard as she could. She was stronger than she’d been a few months ago. Kennedy went sprawling. She skidded through a puddle of water. Everything here that wasn’t burning or covered in ice was soaking wet.

Brenda grabbed Spirit’s arm and used it to pull herself to her feet. Her eyes were wild with panic. “Please,” she said. Spirit read the word from her lips. She dragged Brenda to the doorway and just
shoved
. Brenda went sprawling down the stairs. Spirit turned back. Kennedy saw her and scrabbled for the doorway.

Two more safe. Out of how many?

The room was filled with fog now, as fire and ice clashed and filled the room with blowing, billowing steam. The flames turned the steam clouds red and gold. Spirit couldn’t see anything. Not Kylee. Not Dylan or Chris. She groped back to where she’d seen Zoey, moving by touch.

Chris had his jacket off, using it to protect his hands as he and Dylan struggled to lift the bookshelf off Zoey and the table.
We’re all going to die right here,
Spirit thought, in a moment of shocking clarity. The words in her mind seemed to come from outside herself. She couldn’t imagine leaving Zoey here. And they couldn’t move the bookshelf. It was too heavy to move. Zoey was trapped.
But we don’t have to move the bookshelf …

“Dylan!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Use your power!”

“Too heavy!” he shouted.

“No! Jaunt
Zoey
!” She didn’t know the limits of Dylan’s ability to Jaunt, or how much he could carry. From the despairing look on his face, he didn’t think he could do this. “Dylan!” Spirit shouted again.

Suddenly time seemed to slow. Even through her pain and panic, Spirit felt an uprush of …
something
. It was like when she’d faced the Wild Hunt, like the night of the bonfire—she felt as if she was a conduit, a pipeline for a force so powerful she had no name for it. She reached down and gripped Dylan’s shoulder. If the power was real, she willed it into him.

He stared up at her, white-faced, and reached for Zoey’s hand.

The two of them vanished. Mist skirled into the place they’d been.

Chris lurched to his feet, gasping for air. “Tornado—” he said.

Suddenly the fire flared brighter. In seconds the temperature skyrocketed, baking away the fog. Kylee staggered toward them, beating at her burning clothes.

“Run!” she screamed.

The three of them reached the door together. Kylee vaulted the stairs, landing in a snowdrift and rolling—her skin was steaming from the energy she’d sucked away from the fire. Chris and Spirit skidded out after her.

An instant later, the building exploded.

They would all have been caught in the fireball, but it didn’t swell outward the way it should have. It tried to, but before it could, it was sucked skyward, into the twisting black vortex of the monster tornado filling half the sky.

In a moment the funnel would drop down, and Radial would be gone.

“I can’t— I can’t—” Chris gasped, staring skyward in horror.

“You have to!” Spirit cried. She clutched at Chris’s arm, desperately reaching for the power she’d felt before.
From me to you,
she thought dazedly.

Chris flung his head back and sank to his knees in the snow. There was a moment where everything was balanced on a knife edge. Spirit clenched her fists,
willing
Chris to succeed.

Then the wind dropped, going from gale to breeze to stillness in a matter of heartbeats. The temperature began to rise. The black whirlpool of clouds overhead stopped spinning and began to break up.

Chris began to laugh with sheer relief.

Spirit staggered to her feet and looked around. The parking lot was filled with drifts of rapidly melting snow. Dylan was curled up on his side, groaning and gagging. Zoey lay beside him weeping and clutching at her leg. Maddie stood in the middle of the parking lot, staring at the charred wreckage of the library with wide eyes. Juliette and Brett were nearby, also on their feet. Brenda and Veronica were with them. Veronica was crying; Brenda just looked stunned. Kennedy was standing at the far end of the lot, her back to everyone.

There were one or two other people standing in the street. Spirit couldn’t tell whether they’d been inside the library or not.

“Where are Bella and Erika?” Spirit said slowly.

Juliette began to laugh hysterically. She jammed her fist into her mouth. Her twin put his arms around her. Her yelps of hysterical laughter turned to sobs.

Oh no. No!

In the distance, Spirit could hear the wail of sirens. The Fire Department would be here in seconds—and probably Breakthrough too.

“Listen,” she said—not just to the Radial kids, but to everyone, “whatever you saw, whatever you
think
you saw, don’t tell anyone. Especially anyone from Breakthrough. Stay away from them. Just— Stay away.”

The others stared back at her silently, their faces blank with shock. Then Spirit saw Brenda’s eyes fill with determination. “That’s right,” Brenda said loudly. “We don’t know what happened. Kennedy! Get over here!”

Kennedy turned around. Brenda called her again and she began to walk toward them. Brenda stared into Spirit’s eyes. Spirit tried to will belief. Acceptance.
I don’t have time to explain, I can’t explain, but please please please believe me and do what I say.

“We don’t know what happened in there,” Brenda repeated when Kennedy reached her. “We were inside the library. Then we were outside. That’s all we know.”

“But—” Brett said.

“We didn’t see anything,” Brenda repeated meaningfully. “We don’t know what happened.”

“Where are Bella and Erika?” Kennedy asked. Her voice was hoarse and shaking.

“We don’t know,” Brenda said. “We hope they got out.”

Spirit bit her lip and saw Brenda shake her head fractionally. They both knew the other two hadn’t escaped.

She knew Brenda was going to want a real explanation.

And soon.

She wished she knew what she was going to say.

*   *   *

It was almost dark by the time Spirit, Chris, Kylee, and Maddie finally got back to Oakhurst. Breakthrough had gotten to the library even before the fire truck and Sheriff Copeland arrived. They’d sent for an ambulance—Breakthrough had its own, of course—and took Zoey and Dylan away immediately. The rest of them weren’t as lucky. The pizza parlor was turned into an impromptu command center while Sheriff Copeland tried to find out what had happened. Nobody was sure how many people had died in the explosion. It might be as many as six.

To Spirit’s relief, Brenda, Brett, Juliette, Veronica, and Kennedy stuck to their story. They didn’t know what had happened. There was an explosion. They ran outside.

No one else in town had seen anything. (They certainly hadn’t seen three characters from a video game trash the town library with magic.) After an hour or so the theory Spirit heard most was of there having been a freak tornado dropping a couple of tons of ice on the town and then ripping the library to shreds. It was as good an explanation as any, especially if they couldn’t tell the truth. The hardest part was hearing Sheriff Copeland praise them for keeping cool heads in the emergency. Spirit had never felt so much like a hypocrite. They were being trained for this at Oakhurst—trained to be soldiers. And when a real attack came, they’d choked. And people had died.
At least we don’t have to worry about what to tell them up at the school,
Spirit thought bleakly.
They’ll probably just pretend it never happened. Just like usual.

And the worst part was, none of them knew
why
it had happened. Why had the Shadow Knights attacked in broad daylight—in Radial—with witnesses?

Finally Sheriff Copeland let them leave. Ms. Corby and Mark Rider had come for them personally in one of the Breakthrough SUVs. But in all the confusion of the attack, Spirit had forgotten that while she and her friends all knew Breakthrough and the Shadow Knights were one and the same, Chris and Kylee and Maddie didn’t.

“Are Zoey and Dylan okay? Are those the same guys that attacked us a couple of weeks ago?” Chris said as soon as the three of them were in the car.

Spirit winced mentally. She hoped the Townies did a better job of keeping their mouths shut, or they were all going to be in hot water.

“What happened down there?” Mark asked. He and Ms. Corby were in the front seat; the four of them were in the back. “Are you sure it was an attack?”

“I guess we just assumed it was magic,” Kylee said smoothly, glancing sideways at Spirit as she did. “It was so freaky. There was this big explosion, and—wham!”

“So none of you saw anything more than you told Sheriff Copeland about?” Ms. Corby asked.

“I saw Dylan Jaunt Zoey out from under a bookcase,” Maddie said. “Are they okay?”

“They’re going to be just fine,” Mark said. “Thanks to your quick thinking, nobody was hurt.”

“Aside from the people who
died,
” Spirit said.

“It’s certainly a tragedy, Spirit,” Mark said gravely. “And one we’ll be able to prevent a recurrence of, fortunately. At least, once The Fortress is up and running. Naturally I’ll have my people look into it to discover what really happened. But whether it was a freak storm—or not—I promise you, it won’t happen again. We’ll keep you safe.”