Storykiller (46 page)

When Tessa reached the top of the hill, Robin and Tal were still there, relentlessly loading arrows and hitting everything they aimed at. Tessa looked behind her to survey the field. They were doing well, comparatively. But there was a long way to go yet and Tessa had no idea what awaited her in the tent.

Tessa pulled back the door flap on the tent and Robin put a hand on her arm. “Let me come with you,” he said,
his voice rather desperate.

“No,” Tessa said. “That’s not the plan. You’re here to take these out, to lead the rest of the team, to make sure we win and that nobody dies. God knows what will happen if those things get past you. That’s what I need you to do.”

Robin looked back at the field, his expression not particularly optimistic.

“When you finish, then sure, come on in,” Tessa said smiling, her voice full of false cheer. Robin gave her a look and squeezed her arm.

“Okay then,” he said loading another arrow. Tessa ducked inside, expecting to find chaos, a teeming mass of panicked teenagers in costumes, maybe being held captive by who knew what. Instead, she found only deadly silence.

It was so much worse.

Bodies littered the floor, some slumping over one another, others splayed out like art. Tessa reached down to the body closest to her and felt for a pulse. Asleep. They were all asleep. Not far from her was handsome Nash, gorgeous even while unconscious. Tessa swallowed hard. She had to be careful or who knew what would happen to him and all the rest.

In her peripheral vision, Tessa saw something move toward the back of the tent and turned her head to see The Monster emerge from behind a curtain on the stage. He had Circe (aka The Shiki) by the throat, and he was squeezing hard, if the way The Shiki was squirming under his grasp was any indication
. Tessa didn’t know why Micah wasn’t having him shift out of Circe’s form, into a snake or a bird, something that could slip away, or even a fire-breathing dragon that could burn his damn face off. And then she remembered Micah drinking the punch. She must be asleep, like the rest of them.

“Very clever, Scion,” The Monster said. “Taking out Circe was indeed wise, and using her own familiar against her, ingenious. It does make things a bit more difficult for me. Of course, I do have The Shiki now, so perhaps you’d be interested in a trade?”

“For what?” Tessa asked. “I don’t have anything of yours.”

“You have Circe,” he said, although there was a hint of a question in his voice.

Tessa shook her head. “No, I don’t
. I sent her back to Story. She’s gone.”

The Monster blinked. “Yes, very clever. Although, rather unfortunate for The Shiki,” he said, squeezing more tightly and causing Jeff to let out a mangled cry. Tessa winced, it was a terrible sound. “I guess I could take you, instead.”

Tessa watched The Shiki wriggle in pain, desperate and afraid. The Shiki had been her enemy not so long ago, but if things worked the way Micah said, it hadn’t ever been his choice. He was part of the team now and had proved himself more than once. Besides, Micah loved him like he was part of her, which Tessa guessed he was now. She couldn’t let anything happen to it, to him, to Jeff. Micah would never forgive her.

“Fine. Just let him go.”

The Monster looked down at her through partially lidded, heavy eyes. “Come closer, and drop the weapons,
please.”

Tessa dropped her sword and the crossbow slung over her shoulder. She unstrapped the leg holster and dropped it to the ground with the rest. The Monster watched her. “Lose the jacket,” he said, and Tessa shrugged it off. The Monster nodded in tacit agreement, and Tessa began walking toward the stage, stepping over and between the bodies carefully. When she was perhaps a dozen feet from the stage where The Monster stood watching her, he pulled the cord on the curtain and it fell back to reveal a huge metal wheel. Some kind of machine that was equal parts dark ages and futuristic. An elaborate mess of dials and levers, wires and tubing, but its horrible center was unmistakable—there was a place for a human body to go.

To go and be strapped in.

“Get in,” he said, as if he were offering her a ride home. Tessa eyed the machine. She could guess what it did. What it would do to her and, she’d wager, to the bulk of Lore High School, unconscious at her feet. “Second thoughts?”
The Monster asked, eliciting another round of cries from Jeff’s throat.

“No,” Tessa said evenly, swallowing her fear as best she could. She climbed the stage and stepped over the sleeping bodies of the band members, including Ian. She approached the machine tentatively. She wasn’t even sure how to get inside it. The Monster eyed her.

“Perhaps you need a little help?” he offered. “My assistant can aid you.” He gestured as another figure stepped out from behind the machine. From the looks of him, he could only be Dr, Frankenstein.

“Yes, he has been here all along. He’s not happy about it, but a son wants his father there for his final moments of triumph.”

Tessa looked at the doctor, who looked back at her rather helplessly, his hands and feet bound in heavy chains, wearing a tattered, once-white doctor’s coat that someone had written “assistant” on sloppily in black marker across the pocket.

“Are you all right?” Tessa asked.

Dr. Frankenstein nodded. “But you cannot get in this machine,” he said.

“Oh, but she will,” The Monster said, squeezing Jeff again, who squealed.

Tessa looked at him, hard. “I said I would.” Dr. Frankenstein opened a hatch-like door and Tessa stepped inside, fitting herself into the person shape at the center of the machine. The Doctor positioned her against the metal slab and locked her feet into steel stirrups, pulling her arms away from her body to
lock them into position.

“Father is very proud of my work, even if he likes to pretend otherwise,” The Monster said.

“I’m in. Release him,” Tessa said, nodding her head at Jeff’s squirming Circe form. The Monster seemed to consider it for a moment and then let go.

“I am a man of my word, if nothing else.”

Jeff shifted out of Tessa’s view, and Tessa could not see into what. She didn’t know if Jeff would even be on her side anymore, now that Micah was likely unconscious.

This had maybe been a bad idea.

“I have been transforming my dead slowly, using corpses to create my creatures. You see this machine needs a battery, if you will, to power it. And one mortal life gives me a decent charge. But a Mortal life is limited, and I can only get perhaps half a dozen creatures from one. But you, Scion, are so much more than Mortal, and I’m excited to see how many
your
battery can transform.” The Monster gestured to all the costumed, unconscious figures crowding the floor of the tent. “I’m willing to bet it will be quite a good number.”

Brand’s sole tasks for this battle had been to transport Circe back to Story with the transport bead and to get Snow out of the line of fire and into the cold to heal after she did her work. He had accomplished the first, but the second was proving to be far more difficult. She was almost too hot to carry and getting hotter by the moment, not to mention alternately delirious or unconscious and Brand was panicking. His arms burned, both the muscles inside from the effort of carrying her through uneven terrain in the woods and also quite literally where she laid across his skin. Her skin had long ago burned right through his jacket, and now her flesh seared his wherever they touched. He suspected his tux deposit would not be returned. He was afraid to put her down for fear he’d be unable to pick her up again. There was no way they were going to make it back to his house, or her penthouse, as originally planned. Brand collapsed against a tree,
and her eyes fluttered open.

“So innocent,” she said, trying to raise a hand to touch his face and failing.

“Snow. What happens if I can’t cool you down? You can’t die, right?”

Snow nodded almost imperceptibly. “Can die, just not forever,” she said. Brand chewed his lip and looked around.

“How long? How can we get you back? What happens?

Snow blinked sleepily. “Few decades is all…” she said,
before her head lolled to the side and she passed out again. Brand closed his eyes and laid his head back against the tree.

And then he heard it.

A slight trickle somewhere behind him. He spun and followed the sound. It was the sound of a river. He raced toward it, stumbling over branches and rocks and almost dropping Snow twice before he reached the river’s edge and laid her down beside it. He plunged his hand in and yanked it out. It was cold. Very cold. He lifted Snow, groaning at the pain in his hands as they grazed her bare flesh and plunged her in the river. He held her in the stream, fully underwater, hoping she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, drown.

“C’mon, Snow.” he said, his heartbeat loud in his ears, his arms throbbing from burns.

Grey had been slapping Micah for a full minute trying to get her to wake up when he finally remembered what he had in his pocket. He always had it with him. Ever since Juliet and he, well, ever since always, he supposed. As he cradled Micah’s head and moved to uncap the vial, a small red figure came running at them, horned, with bulging eyes and a grotesquely large mouth twisted into a bizarre grin. Grey dropped the vial and picked up his sword, pointing it at the creature. The creature shuddered to a halt and then paused, as if thinking, before shifting its shape into the grey-striped tabby cat. Grey lowered the sword, and Jeff ran to Micah’s side, licking at her limp hand while Grey searched the ground for the vial he’d dropped. But then Jeff hissed, his fur standing on end,
and Grey turned to see two Franken-dogs stalking toward them, guttural growls rumbling about their chests.

Tessa looked at the levers as Dr. Frankenstein pulled on them and occasionally eyed The Monster, who watched them closely, never more than a few feet away. Nobody saw Fenris until he was within striking distance from the stage, in his handsome man-shape (and inappropriately naked, yet again). Tessa had never been so glad to see him, naked or not.

“Monster,” he said, his voice even and charming.

“Wolf,” The Monster said, nodding his head in greeting. Tessa looked from one to the other.

They didn’t seem like strangers.

This didn’t seem good.

The Monster narrowed his eyes at Fenris. “Do not interfere.”

“I’m afraid I must,” Fenris said, and Tessa’s heart raced. Something was happening that she didn’t understand, but the pebble of dread in her stomach was rattling powerfully.

“And why is that, Wolf?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t suit my purposes for the border to close at this moment, and so The Scion must live, for now,” he mused, licking his lips and glancing at Tessa. Tessa tried to catch his eye, to read his expression, but it was as unreadable as ever. “I, of course, respect your needs, but I urge you to reconsider this course of action,” he said evenly, looking back to The Monster. “Perhaps you can try again later, when our goals more closely align?”

The Monster paused, as if seriously considering the request. “No,” he said finally. “You are an old and respected Story, and I’ve no wish to be your enemy, but I have waited long enough. A century and a half alone just for her to be born. Though I hoped to have a larger army at my disposal at this point, nothing is so ruined that I cannot still get what I desire.”