Poison Princess

35

“Are you ready to tell me if Jackson will be safe down there?” I asked Matthew as we waited in the van, bundled in our sleeping bags for warmth. The fog was setting in, chilling me to my bones.

“You’ll see him again.” When I exhaled with relief, he said, “You think about him too much.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Matto. And that’d been before Jackson had called me ma belle.

To be Jackson Deveaux’s girlfriend . . . I was giddy from the possibility, too scared to hope.

Then I nibbled my lip as doubts crept in. What about the Arcana war, Selena, Death, the red witch?

“When Dee-vee-oh helps you, he hurts you.”

“You’ve told me that before, but not what that means.” No answer. “He did save my life—and yours. He’s protected us. He’s taught me about Bagmen and sourcing.” Nothing. “Matthew, I feel stronger around him.”

“Practice with your claws,” he said. “That will make you feel stronger.”

“I don’t know how to make them appear, because someone won’t tell me.” Right now they were emotion-based and uncontrollable.

“How does the red witch flex her claws?”

I glared. “And speaking of disgusting things that repel me, how long am I going to suffer those nightmares? Can you look into the future? Why do I see her?”

Though I had no interest in fighting Death, I was almost tempted to face the witch. Then the nightmares would end—one way or another. “Matthew?”

He began staring at one of his hands. Subject closed.

So I posed the same question I’d been asking for days, “Can you please just tell me if Jackson and Selena were together?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he answered in a testy tone.

Baffling answers from the king of cryptic!

“You’re thinking of him, and you haven’t even heard the card,” Matthew said.

“What card?” I asked, beginning to prepare our lunch. In other words, I pulled out a squished energy bar from my pocket to halve with him. My stomach was already growling for it.

“Nearby. Don’t look at this hand. But you can’t hear him because of Dee-vee-oh.”

“Why would I want to hear the voices? I don’t know this new card, don’t feel an attachment to any of them but you. I hate the voices.”

“Then you’ll die, with their gloating whispers in your ear.”

“Matthew, that was . . . harsh.” And eerie. It was times like this when I realized how little I truly knew about this boy.

“Death is expecting you,” he said for the umpteenth time.

“Then he’ll have a damned long wait!” I snapped. The mere mention of that knight set me off. “Death schooled those other Arcana, and they were strong, united. Even committed to each other,” I added, remembering Joules’s howl of grief. “I will never face him. Get it out of your head, because it will never happen. Never.”

Silence groaned between us, cold seeping into the van.

Regretting my tone with him, I tamped down my irritation and changed the subject. “If we’re going to have this cold and fog, maybe we could actually get some rain, too.”

Matthew shot upright, eyes wild. “No, no, no! Never say that! Take it back!” He clasped my shoulder, squeezing hard.

“I take it back! You’re hurting me!”

“You don’t want rain!” His gaze darted, his expression horrified. “The rain is worse.”

“How can that be?”

He yelled, “WORSE!” His voice boomed in the confines of the van, paining my ears. “For you. For us! Can’t be stopped though.” He released me, looking wounded, his face leached of color. “Why would you hope for hell, Evie?”

“I-I’m sorry.” This was the first time he’d ever frightened me. I kept thinking of him as childlike, and he was in some ways. But he was also volatile, and as strong as a full-grown man. “What does the rain do, Matthew?” Was precipitation even possible anymore? Surely if there was fog . . .

“The game changes. Not in our favor,” he whispered. “We grow so weak. They grow so strong.”

“Who?”

“All our foes laugh now. But once the sun hides? You’ve never known terror, not like you will when the rains come.”

I shivered from cold—and fear. “I need more of an explanation. Matthew, I need you to clarify these things to me.”

“You’re not ready. You listen poorly. We sit inside this van—because you listen poorly! We are behind, with rain on the horizon.”

“Okay, okay, but I’m ready to listen better now. Tell me what we should be doing. What do you think we should do? I want to know.”

“Too late. Our capture starts soon.”

“C-capture?”

“We need the card in the cage.”

Glancing up through the windshield, I asked, “What are you talking . . .” My words trailed off, my heart dropping.

In the wafting mist, a ragtag group of militiamen—all armed to the teeth—stalked closer.

Like a hunting party.

“Matthew, you follow me now,” I whispered as I strapped on my bag and crawled to the back doors of the van. “Grab the machete. We’ve got to slip out, quietly.” I cracked open one door, wincing as the hinges groaned—

Three shotguns were pointed at my face.

“Looky what we found,” the leader of our captors announced as he shoved Matthew and me through the crowd in their camp.

On the long trek here, I’d determined that he was as dentally challenged as he was odor-enhanced. Apparently this entire encampment was.

These militiamen were what Jackson would call cou rouge.

Because they were seriously red of the neck.

During our capture, Matthew hadn’t fought whatsoever. In fact, as they’d snared my wrists with those plastic zip ties, he’d put his hands behind him, making it easier for them to bind.

I hadn’t wanted him to resist—we’d been surrounded by aimed rifles—but maybe he could have made a show of displeasure?

We’d been abducted, our van looted, my bag ransacked. The leader had stolen all my jewelry and whiskey bottles, tossing the rest.

Now as the head Cou Rouge maneuvered us through the camp, I kept my eyes open for Jackson and Selena—and tried to ignore the way men stood when I passed, ogling me with lecherous eyes.

They all seemed to have winter-weather gear, though many of their jackets sported what looked like bullet holes. I frowned. Bloody ones—often in the back.

My lips parted with realization. Bullet holes from where they’d gunned down their victims, then stripped their clothes.

“She smells good enough to eat,” one man said as he grabbed his crotch.

I shuddered with revulsion, so tempted to try my claws. They could easily slice through those ties. Matthew had once told me they could even cut through metal.

But then what? These men had guns. I was a slow runner, and I’d never leave Matthew behind.

I’d probably end up cutting myself anyway. And what would I do if dead grass sprouted green under my drops of blood?

Cou Rouge marched us past numerous RVs with their generators humming, scores of tents, and vehicles of all kinds. Cookout fires abounded, with men barbecuing what looked like small mammals. Despite the circumstances, the smell of grilled meat made my mouth water.

I also spotted plastic cans of gas everywhere. I’d decided this militia was rich with fuel—even before I saw an actual tanker. They safeguarded it in the center of the encampment like a golden idol.

And that wasn’t all. Near the tanker was a raised cistern, its iron sides dripping. Filled with water.

Cou Rouge stopped before an improvised jail cell, a cage made from wooden packing crates nailed together. Only one boy was within. At least Jackson and Selena remained free.

Shoving Matthew and me inside, Cou Rouge padlocked the door and posted three guards. “Don’t be leavin’ this spot,” he ordered them. “Not for any reason.”

The other prisoner was around our age, with freckles on his nose and chin-length dirty-blond hair. This boy was the card in the cage I was supposed to be listening for? The one we’d needed to find? He seemed so unremarkable.

“ ’S’up,” he said mildly as we sat on the cold, ashy ground. “Name’s Finneas. Call me Finn. . . .” He trailed off as he stared at me, then Matthew.

He was seeing our tableaus; I knew because I was beholding his. For a split second, Finn was clad in a red robe, holding a wand to the sky while pointing to the ground with his other hand. On a table before him lay a pentagram, a chalice, a sword, and a cane. A bed of roses and lilies grew at his feet, vines trailing above.

—Don’t look at this hand, look at that one.— Then his call grew silent. Was he hearing ours?

And was the boy associated with plants in some way? Matthew’s card also had a flower on it, a white rose!

Of course, so had Death’s card—an emblem on the black flag he carried.

While I was blinking, regaining my focus, Finn said, “Whoa. I think I just had an acid flashback.” He sounded as if he belonged on a beach in Cali.

“I-I’m Evie. This is Matthew.” I indicated him with a jerk of my chin.

Matthew met his gaze and said, “Card. Arcana. Secrets. Card.”

“Whatever, dude.”

“Um, Finn, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem really calm.”

Matthew, too, looked unaffected by our predicament. He began inspecting the grain on one of the boards.

“I am calm, blondie.”

“Even though these men are probably slavers or cannibals?”

“Nah, homeowners’ association gone awry.”

I frowned at his flippant tone. “What do they want with us?”

“They’re going to use me and your weird companion here as cistern diversion.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bagman bait. The woods around here are thick with Baggers. At dusk, they advance on that cistern in this big wave of creep—unless live meat runs past and distracts them. Then the hicks pick them off. Oh, and while we’re out running for our lives, you’re going to be married off to, like, all of this militia. Mazel tov.”

Dread swept over me—for both Matthew and myself. “H-how many soldiers are there?”

“Hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” Even if Jackson managed to figure out what happened to us, I didn’t know if we could be rescued.

“They’re just waiting for nightfall. Then you’re s.o.l., sister. There’s only one other chick in the entire camp. But she’s the chief redneck’s daughter, so they consider her off-limits, kind of a Smurfette situation.” He exhaled, grinning up at the slats of the cage roof. “Smoking body on that one—but shy a few teeth. Still, I’d do Hickette with a flag over her face.”

“Excuse me?”

Matthew chuckled. “Do her for his country.”

“Matthew!” I cried, frowning at him. I’d thought of him as more . . . innocent.

Finn laughed with him, the two of them apparently fast friends.

Ugh. Teenage boys! Jackson had told me I didn’t understand them. I realized then that I probably never would. “You two are joking around, not concerned about this at all.”

“I just had a hot blonde dropped into a Caged Heat scenario with me.” Finn waggled his brows. “A chesty blonde—with all her teeth. As my Flash-fried redneck cousins used to say, ‘I’m happy as a pig in shit.’ ”

Plant association or not, this self-important, smirky boy was getting on my nerves.

When he relaxed back against the side of the cage, I said, “You probably have someone coming to save you?”

“I can get out of this at any time.”

“Really?”

“I only let them capture me so I could get close to that daughter. I’m a magician, hotness. Getting out of binds is what I do.”

“The Magician,” Matthew said.

Finn’s chest puffed out. “Damn straight, dude.”

If he was an Arcana, then he had powers of some sort. Still, I couldn’t buy his total lack of worry. “Well, we have friends who are coming for us,” I told him under my breath, my words full of assurance. “We’ll be rescued soon.”

But time kept passing. One hour. Another.

For afternoon amusement, some soldiers set up target practice nearby—three moaning Bagmen impaled on spikes. One Bagger looked freshly turned, one had no legs, and the other no arms.

The soldiers opened fire and the Bagmen writhed and gurgled. Chunks of slimy skin flew off the targets, plopping near the cage, fouling the air.

I held my arms over my head to block out the gunshots, the moans. . . .

By late afternoon, I caught myself wondering why Jackson and Selena—two hard-core survivors—would risk their necks against tremendously shitty odds to rescue their pair of deadweights?

How strong was Selena’s influence over Jackson?

As much as I wanted to believe in our rescue, my current predicament—freezing, huddled in a cage, starving—wasn’t boosting my optimism.

Much less my future predicament.

And Matthew would say nothing to help. Did he not understand what was about to happen to us?

By sunset, I was awash in doubt. Why wouldn’t Jackson and Selena just run off together and be happy, without all the hassle, without all the danger? How many times had Jackson told me I was more trouble than I was worth?

I wondered how I would recover if he’d truly abandoned me here.

I wondered how I’d feel if he got killed trying to save me from these ignorant militiamen.

My eyes watered. At that moment, I hit my limit of fear and confusion and . . . and people. I was sick of them! Sick of danger lurking around every corner.

“Is everybody evil now?” I murmured to no one.

I had the strangest urge to shove my fingers into the dirt and feel them . . . take root. What if I could tap the earth and become a soldier at attention? I wouldn’t even have to be a girl anymore, just a part of something so much bigger.

If I surrendered, there’d be no more worries about Jackson, no more fears about facing the red witch—or Death.

Such a seductive pull . . . as alluring as a ripe berry. I gazed at the sooty ground with contemplation.

Then I grew ashamed. What would Mom think of me now? The woman who’d tackled a Bagman would never surrender like this.

“Yeah, everybody’s totally evil now,” Finn said, jarring me from my thoughts. “What, didja miss the memo? Dickwads. Pretty much uniformly, in my experience. All evil, all the time. But not me.” In a grand ringmaster’s tone, he breathed, “I’m mischievous. . . .”

I turned to Matthew. “Once again, anytime you feel like contributing, please do. We need to figure out our own escape.”

He nodded winningly. “Cards.”

“Yes, Matthew, but you really need—” A wail sounded from the nearby woods. I shot up straighter. “What was that?”

“Bagmen at the gates, baby,” Finn said, excitement flashing in his hazel eyes. “It’s almost showtime. I’ve only seen this from a distance before.”

Suddenly the earth quaked, an explosion rocking the camp. I cried out. The deafening blast was so strong my teeth clattered.

Bits of debris rained down through the slats of the cage. Smoke billowed. Men yelled from all directions, barking orders for fires to be put out.

Matthew yawned as a larger explosion followed.

When we heard a raging whoosh from that giant cistern toppling over, I shared a stunned glance with Finn.

Bagmen in number. A cistern of water.

“We’ll be overrun,” he said. “A pretty ballsy distraction. Did your people make with the mayhem?”

Chaos had broken out among the militia. “Yeah. Our people.”