فصل 12

Chapter 12

CALL AND TAMARA screamed. The car swerved, Call’s hands heedless on the wheel. That made Tamara scream even harder. All the screams woke Jasper and Aaron, who added their voices to the screaming. Havoc started to bark. Throughout all the commotion, Master Rufus just floated in the center of the car, looking annoyed and — translucent.

That was the final shock. Call slammed on the brakes, and the car screeched to a stop in the middle of the road. Everyone suddenly stopped screaming. There was a dead silence. Master Rufus continued to be see-through.

“Are you dead?” Call asked in a shaking voice.

“He’s not dead,” Jasper said, managing to sound smug and annoyed even though he was clearly terrified. “He’s calling from an ether phone. This is how it looks on the other end.” “Oh.” Call filed away the knowledge that the thing he’d always called a tornado phone was actually called something else. He pictured Master Rufus holding the glass jar on his lap, staring into it balefully. “So you’re somewhere else?” he said to Rufus. “Not … actually here?” “It doesn’t matter where I am. What matters is that you children are all in a great deal of trouble,” Master Rufus said. “An enormous amount of trouble and also a great deal of danger. Callum Hunt, you are already on thin ice. Aaron Stewart, you are a Makar and you have responsibilities — responsibilities that include behaving responsibly. And you, Tamara Rajavi, of the three of you, I expected you to know better.” “Master Rufus,” Jasper began, in his sweetest tattletale voice, “I’ll have you know that I never —” “As for you, Jasper deWinter,” Master Rufus said, cutting him off. “Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you really are more interesting than I originally imagined. But the four of you must return to the Magisterium immediately.” Jasper looked horrified, probably for several reasons.

“Are you back at the Magisterium?” Call asked.

Master Rufus appeared highly peeved by that question. “Indeed I am, Callum. After spending most of yesterday and all of today fruitlessly searching for you children, one of you must have lost your protection against scrying. I see that you’re in some kind of vehicle. Pull over, tell me where you are, and some mages will be along to get you shortly.” “I don’t think we can do that,” Callum said, heart pounding.

“And why not?” Master Rufus’s eyebrows twitched with barely contained annoyance.

Call hesitated.

“Because we’re on a mission,” Tamara said quickly. “We’re going to recover the Alkahest.” “I’m the Makar,” Aaron said. “I’m supposed to save people. They’re not supposed to save me — they resent having to save me. And I’ve been told plenty that I can’t succeed doing stuff alone, so Call is here to be my counterweight. Tamara is here because she’s clever and crafty. And Jasper is …” “Comic relief?” Call ventured under his breath.

“I’m your friend, too, you idiot!” Jasper burst out. “I can be clever!” “Anyway,” Aaron said, trying to recover the situation. “We’re a team and we’re getting the Alkahest back, so please don’t send any other elementals after us.” “Send any other elementals after you?” Master Rufus sounded genuinely confused. “What on earth do you mean?” “You know what I mean,” Aaron said in that flat voice he used when he was angry and trying not to show it. “We all know. Automotones nearly killed us, and he came from the Magisterium. You released him to hunt us down.” Now Master Rufus looked shocked. “There must be a mistake. Automotones is here, our prisoner; he has been for hundreds of years.” “It’s not a mistake,” Tamara said. “Maybe the other mages didn’t tell you, because we’re your apprentices. But it absolutely happened. Automotones murdered a woman, too. Burned her house down.” Tamara’s voice shook.

“These are lies,” Master Rufus said.

“We’re not lying,” Aaron told him. “But I guess that means you trust us about as much as we trust you.” “Then you’re being lied to,” said Master Rufus. “I don’t know — I don’t understand yet — but you must come back to the Magisterium. It’s more important now than ever. This is the only place where I can protect you.” “We’re not coming back.” Surprisingly, Jasper was speaking. He turned to Call. “Hang up the phone.” Call stared at ghostly Rufus. “I, uh, don’t know how.”

“Earth!” Tamara yelped. “Earth is the opposite of air!”

“Right. I, uh —” Call reached down and grabbed Miri out of the sheath on his belt. Metal had earth magic properties. “Sorry,” he said, and plunged the knife into ghostly Rufus.

Rufus disappeared with a pop, like a burst bubble.

Tamara screamed.

“I didn’t kill him, did I?” Call said, looking around at everyone’s shocked faces. Only Havoc seemed unmoved. He’d gone back to sleep.

“No,” Jasper said. “It’s just, most people just use the earth power to shut down the connection. But I guess that’s a lot of restraint to expect from you, weirdo.” “I am not a weirdo,” Call grumbled, sheathing his blade.

“You’re a little weird,” Aaron said.

“Oh, yeah, well, who lost their protective rock?” Call demanded. “Who forgot to transfer it to their new clothes?” Tamara groaned in frustration. “That’s how the mages found us! Jasper, did you?” Jasper held up his hands, flummoxed. “That’s what that rock was? No one told me!” “Now isn’t the time to worry about this,” Aaron insisted. “We made some mistakes. The important thing is that we hide from the mages as best we can.” Call went to pull the car back onto the main road, when he realized the engine had stalled out.

Aaron had to spark the wires all over again, while they held their collective breaths, since there were no more cars to take if the Morris conked out on them. A few moments later, though, Aaron had it running once more.

Tamara didn’t have any more stones, so they took turns passing around the ones they had, so the mages might not scry the right person at the right time.

Call drove for the rest of the day and through the night, with the other kids sleeping in shifts. Call didn’t sleep, though. At each rest stop, he acquired more and more coffee until he felt as though his head was going to spin around like a top and then pop right off.

The landscape had changed, becoming more mountainous. The air was cooler, and pine trees took the place of mulberry and dogwood.

“I could drive for a while,” Tamara offered, coming out of a Gas and Grub in Maine. Dawn was breaking by then and Call had been caught at least once driving with a single eye open.

Aaron had bought a Butterfinger and a Honey Bun and was mashing the candy bar into the pastry to make a bizarre sugar hot dog. Call approved. Jasper ate pretzels and stared.

“No,” Call said, taking a swig from his coffee. One of his eyes twitched a little, but he ignored it. “I’ve got this.” Tamara shrugged and handed the directions to Jasper. It was his turn to navigate.

“I refuse,” Jasper said, taking a long look at Call. “You need to sleep. You’re going to drive into a ditch and we’re going to die, all because you won’t take a nap. So take a nap!” “I’ll set an alarm,” Tamara offered.

“I could stretch my legs,” said Aaron. “Go ahead. Lie down in the backseat.” Now that they mentioned it, Call was feeling kind of fuzzy-headed. “Okay,” he said, yawning. “But just for twenty minutes. Dad used to say that that was the ideal amount of time for a nap.” “We’ll take Havoc for a real walk,” Tamara said. “See you in twenty.”

Call climbed into the backseat. But when he closed his eyes, what he saw was Master Rufus, his eyes going wide as Call drew Miri and stabbed the image of him. His expression had reminded Call of the way his father had looked, right before Call used magic to slam him against a wall.

Despite being exhausted, Call couldn’t stop his brain from showing him those images over and over again.

And as soon as he shoved those images away, new ones rose up to take their place. Images of things that hadn’t happened yet, but might. The look of betrayal on Aaron’s face when he discovered who Call really was, the look of fury on Tamara’s. Jasper’s smug certainty that he’d been right about Call all along.

Finally, he gave up and got out of the car. Early-morning sunlight dappled the grass, and the music of distant birdsong hung in the air. Aaron and Tamara and Havoc were gone, but Jasper was sitting at a worn old picnic table. Sparks flew from his fingers as he set fire to a pinecone and then watched it turn to embers.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Jasper said.

“I know,” Call told him. “But I wanted to talk to you about something, while the others aren’t here.” Jasper narrowed his eyes. “Oh, going behind your friends’ backs? This should be interesting.” Call sat down at the picnic table. The wind had picked up and it was blowing his hair into his eyes. “When we get to the destination on the map, hopefully, my father is going to be there and he’s still going to have the Alkahest. But I need to talk to him — alone.” “About what?”

“He’ll listen to me, but not if he thinks a bunch of apprentices are going to attack him. And I don’t want Aaron getting too close, in case my dad does try to hurt him. I need you and Tamara and Aaron to keep back, at least until I finish my conversation.” “Why are you telling me this?” Jasper still looked suspicious, but not unconvinced.

Call couldn’t tell him the truth — that it was easier to lie to Jasper than to his friends. “Because you care about protecting Aaron a lot more than you care about protecting me.” “True,” said Jasper. “He’s the Makar. You’re just …” He looked curiously at Call. “I don’t know what you are.” “Yeah, well,” Call said. “That makes two of us.”

Before Jasper could say anything else, Tamara and Aaron appeared from between the trees, Havoc bounding around excitedly beside them.

Call slid off the bench. “What’s he so happy about?”

“He ate a squirrel.” Tamara sounded disapproving.

As Call headed toward the car, he bent down to pet Havoc’s head and whispered, “Good dog. Excellent hunting instincts. We eat squirrels, not people, am I right?” “Never too early to start molding his character,” Aaron said.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Together Call and Aaron helped heave a reluctant Havoc into the backseat. Jasper and Tamara clambered in after him, and Aaron took the passenger seat.

The moment they all sat down, the doors of the car slammed shut in unison.

“What’s going on?” Tamara demanded. She scrabbled at her door, but it wouldn’t open. None of their doors would budge. “Start the car, Aaron!” Aaron reached across Call for the wires, trying to get a spark. Nothing happened. No sound of the engine turning over. He did it again, and again. Sweat started to prickle along Call’s back. What was going on?

From the backseat, Jasper shouted, “I tried to use metal magic and sparks hurt my hand instead.” “It must be warded,” said Tamara.

Something swooped in front of the windshield. Call yelled and Aaron jerked back, wires dropping from his hands.

Two huge air elementals had appeared in front of the car. One of them looked like a six-legged horse, if horses were about twice the size they normally were. The other one resembled a brontosaurus with wings. Both were bridled and saddled: Master Rockmaple was riding one, and Master Milagros the second.

“We are in so much trouble,” said Jasper.

Master Milagros slid from the back of her six-legged horse and stalked over to the car. She lifted her hands, spread her fingers, and hurled from her palms long threads of glimmering metal wires. They wrapped around the front of the car and within seconds, it was tightly secured.

As she performed her metal magic, Milagros looked through the windshield at the kids. She shook her head disapprovingly, but Callum thought she looked a little bit as if she found the whole thing … funny.

She whirled around without a word to them and marched back to the elementals. She tossed a rope of metal to Rockmaple and climbed back up onto her own elemental, securing her rope to the pommel of the saddle.

“Oh, my God,” said Tamara. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She threw herself against her door, but the car was already rising into the air like the basket below a balloon. Everyone in the car shrieked as maps and empty soda cans and candy bar wrappers flew off the dashboard and out of the cup holders and rattled around inside the car.

“What are they doing?” Call yelled over the sound of the wind.

“Taking us to the Magisterium — what do you think?” Jasper yelled back.

“They’re going to fly us to Virginia? Won’t someone normal, you know, notice?” “They’re probably using air magic to block us from view,” Tamara said. Then she yelped as the car swung out over the forest below. All Call could see beneath them were miles of green trees.

“In movies, people pretend to be sick to get their jailers to let them out,” Aaron told them. “Maybe one of us could try throwing up — or frothing from the mouth.” “Like we’re rabid?” Call asked.

“We don’t have time to argue,” Tamara said, reaching into her satchel, clearly completely panicked, and coming out with a little bottle of clear liquid. “I have hand soap. Quick, Jasper, drink it. You’ll definitely froth.” “I am not drinking that,” Jasper said. “I am a deWinter. We do not froth.” Aaron squinted at the air elementals pulling their car like a sled, as though he was reconsidering his own plan. “I’m not sure they’d hear us if we shouted anyway.” “Wait,” said Call, turning in his seat. “I’ve watched my dad work on cars my whole life. You know what goes really early? The floor pan. Look down. It’s rusted, right? All we have to do is kick.” For a moment, they all just stared at him. Then Tamara started kicking the floor with a vengeance. Havoc leaped up onto the seat, whining as Aaron climbed over the passenger seat to help. After three kicks, his booted foot went right through.

“This is going to work!” Jasper shouted, as much with surprise as with anything else.

A few more kicks and they were able to peel back the floor of the car. Tamara looked over at Call and then Aaron.

“Ready?” she asked.

“I’ve got Havoc,” Call said.

“Wait, who’s got me?” Jasper asked, but Call ignored him and, grabbing hold of his wolf and his backpack, jumped out into the dark nothingness below the car. Havoc yipped, limbs flailing, tail cycling.

Above him, Call saw Tamara leaping out, her hair flying up in the blue sky. A moment later, he saw what he thought was Aaron shoving Jasper through the hole. Then Aaron appeared, falling through the air.

Call drew on the air, weaving an invisible net of magic around and beneath him. His fall slowed, and Havoc stopped barking as they descended steadily into the woods below.

Call hit the ground on his back, but the impact was light. He let go of Havoc, who rolled to his feet, his eyes wild. Call wasn’t sure exactly where they were and cursed himself for, in his panic, not remembering the map. But a moment later he realized that he couldn’t have found their place on it anyway. Even if they’d had it, it would have been useless.

Beside him, Havoc whined, looking up in the sky, as though he might be forced to fly again at any moment. He barked as Tamara drifted down gracefully, her dark braid floating up around her head. She alighted on a fallen log, a huge smile on her face. “That was amazing,” she said. “I always thought I liked fire magic the best, but air —” WHAM! Jasper slammed down onto a pile of pine needles. A moment later Aaron touched down beside him, his arms crossed, looking furious.

“You let me fall,” Jasper moaned.

“I did not,” Aaron said defensively. “He said he could do it himself! He said he’d be fine!” “Seems okay to me,” said Call. Tamara shot him a quelling look and ran over to Jasper, who pushed himself half upright.

“Ow,” Jasper muttered, collapsing again. “Ow ow ow.”

Tamara was leaning over Jasper, who was milking the attention for all it was worth.

“The pain,” he said. “The agony.”

“Aaron, don’t you have a first-aid kit in your backpack?” Tamara said.

“Yeah, but I left my backpack behind.” Aaron scanned the sky. “How long do you think before they notice they’re hauling an empty car?” “Probably not very long,” Tamara said. “We need to hide.”

“Right,” Aaron said. “Stand back, Tamara, Jasper.” He reached out a hand and caught Call’s wrist. “Call. Stay.” Puzzled, Call stayed, as Tamara, Jasper, and Havoc moved a few feet away. Aaron looked exhausted — Call suspected they all did. The aftereffects of the air magic were beginning to catch up with him, flattening out the adrenaline that had been keeping him going. No twenty-minute nap was going to help. He felt as though he might fall over.

Aaron took a deep breath and raised the hand that wasn’t holding Call’s wrist. His fingers shone with a black glow. The darkness spilled down like acid, spreading across the ground. Dissolving it.

Call could feel the pull and tug inside him that meant Aaron was drawing on him to work chaos. Aaron’s eyes were closed, fingers digging into Call’s skin.

“Aaron?” Call said, but Aaron didn’t react. Soil was churning at their feet, like a whirlpool. It was hard to see what was happening, but the force of it shook the ground. Tamara held on to Jasper to keep upright.

“Aaron!” For the first time, Call could imagine how the Enemy of Death’s brother, Jericho, had died. Constantine might have gotten so caught up in the magic he was doing that he forgot about his brother until it was too late.

Aaron wrenched his grip free of Call’s arm. He was breathing hard. The dust of disturbed earth had begun to settle, and Call and the others could see that Aaron had torn a chunk of the ground free, hollowing out a sort of hole, hidden from sight by an overhang of grassy rock.

“You made us a dirt cave,” Jasper said. “Huh.”

Aaron’s sweaty hair was stuck to his forehead and when he looked at Jasper, Call thought that he might be seriously considering disappearing him into the void.

“Let’s rest,” Tamara said. “Call, I know you’re in a hurry to get to Alastair, but we’re all tired and the air magic wiped us out.” She did look a little gray; so did Jasper. “Let’s hide out until we all have our strength back.” Call wanted to object, but he couldn’t. He was just too tired. He crawled into the cave and flopped down on the ground. He wished for a blanket … and that was his last thought before he dropped into sleep, falling as quickly and as deeply as if he’d been struck in the back of the head.

When he woke, the sun was setting in a blaze of orange. Tamara was slumbering beside him, one hand in Havoc’s fur. On Tamara’s other side, Aaron was tossing fitfully, his eyes closed. Jasper slept, too, his jacket wadded up as a pillow beneath his head.

Call heard a rustling sound outside the cave. He wondered if it was some kind of animal.

Digging around in his pack, he found a half-eaten candy bar and made short work of it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting, but he knew he felt more awake and alert than he had since they’d embarked on this mission. A strange calm settled over him.

I should leave them, he thought.

They’d come far enough. He’d never had friends like this, friends who were willing to risk everything to help him. He didn’t want to reward his friends by leading them to their doom.

Then Call heard another rustling, closer this time. It didn’t sound like an animal, more like a herd, moving slowly and quietly through the brush.

He revised his plan rapidly.

“Tamara, wake up,” Call whispered, poking her with his foot. “Something’s out there.” She rolled over and opened her eyes. “Mrmph?”

“Out there,” he repeated softly. “Something.”

She poked Aaron and he got Jasper up, both of them yawning and groaning at being awoken.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jasper complained.

“Let’s check it out,” Aaron whispered. “Come on.”

“What if it’s the mages?” Tamara said quietly. “Maybe we should just hunker down?” Call shook his head. “If they come in here, there’s nowhere to run. We’re literally backed against a wall.” No one could deny that, so they got their stuff and, tugging Havoc along, emerged from the cave. Night was falling.

“You’ve lost it,” Jasper said. “There’s nothing out here.”

But then they all heard it, a rustling that came from two places at once.

“Maybe the mages found us,” Aaron said. “Maybe we could —”

But it wasn’t a mage that stepped out of the foliage.

It was a Chaos-ridden human who emerged, slack-faced and staring with coruscating eyes that spun with colors like a kaleidoscope. He was huge, dressed in ragged black clothes. Looking more closely, Call realized they were the remains of a uniform. A ripped, old, mud-stained, blood-soaked uniform. There was an emblem over his heart, but in the gloom, Call couldn’t make out what it was.

Jasper had gone papery white. He’d never seen one of the Chaos-ridden before, Call realized.

Call had only long enough to be horrified when another one stepped out to his left. He spun, clutching Miri in his hand, just as a third surged out of some undergrowth to his right. And then another, and another, and another, all pallid and sunken-eyed, a flood of Chaos-ridden coming from all sides.

The Enemy’s army outnumbered them.

“W-what do we do?” gasped Jasper. He had grabbed up a stick from the forest floor and was brandishing it. Tamara was shaping a fireball between her hands. They were steady but her expression was panicked.

“Get behind me,” Aaron ordered. “All of you.”

Jasper moved behind him with alacrity. Tamara was still working on her fireball, but she was already behind Aaron. Most of the Chaos-ridden were massed on the opposite side of the clearing, staring at them with their whirling eyes. Their silence was eerie.

“I won’t,” Call said. He didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t know why. “You can’t. I’m your counterweight and I can tell you’re not rested enough. You just used chaos magic. It’s too soon to do it again.” Aaron’s jaw was set. “I have to try.”

“There’s too many of them,” Call argued as the army began to advance. “The chaos will consume you.” “I’ll take them down with me,” Aaron said grimly. “Better this than the Alkahest, right?” “Aaron —”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, and ran toward them, skidding across pine needles. Tamara looked up from her fireball and screamed.

“Aaron, duck!”

He ducked. She threw the fire. It arced over Aaron’s head, landed among the mass of the Chaos-ridden, and exploded. Some of the Chaos-ridden caught fire, but they kept coming. Their expressions didn’t change, even when they fell down, still burning.

Now Call was more afraid than he could remember being. Aaron was nearing the first line of the enemy army. He held his hand up, chaos beginning to whirl and grow in his palm like a tiny hurricane. It swirled upward — The Chaos-ridden reached Aaron. They seemed to swallow him up among them for a moment, and Call’s stomach dropped into his shoes.

Call started to stumble toward them — and halted. He could see Aaron again, standing stock-still, looking bewildered. The Chaos-ridden were walking around him, making no move to touch him at all, like water parting around a rock in a stream.

They marched past Aaron, and Call could hear Jasper and Tamara breathing harshly, because the Chaos-ridden were moving in their direction now. Maybe they wanted to take out the weak ones before starting on Aaron. Call was the only one with a knife, although he wasn’t sure how much Miri would help. He wondered if he’d die here, protecting Tamara and Jasper — and Aaron. It was a heroic way to go, at least. Maybe it would prove he wasn’t what his father thought.

The Chaos-ridden had reached them. Aaron was trying to push his way through, trying to reach his friends. The first of the Chaos-ridden, the huge man with the spiked wristbands, came to a stop in front of Call.

Call tightened his grip on Miri. Whatever else, he would go down fighting.

The Chaos-ridden spoke. Its voice sounded like a croak, rusty from disuse. “Master,” it said, fixing its whirling eyes on Call. “We have waited for you for so long.” The first Chaos-ridden knelt down in front of Call. And then the next Chaos-ridden knelt, and the next, until they were all on their knees and Aaron was standing among them, staring at Call across the clearing with a look of disbelief.