Chapter 37
Iwas tossed violently forward. My ribs slammed into something hard. Then I was cold, wet, underwater. I kicked my legs and hit the bottom. I stood. My head broke the surface, and I swallowed air. Water had gone up my nose. I coughed.
Heads popped up around me and on the other side of the sinking cart, taillights pointing to the sky. One, two, three, four, five, six heads—we were all still alive. Hugo scrambled out of the water first, then Lou and Em/Suzanne, who grabbed me by the armpits with her powerful hands and pulled as I climbed and pushed and slipped and climbed until I was back on the road.
There, I noticed a thin layer of blue scrill over the skin on my hands, pocked by raindrops. A shanika infected by Blanche’s cackle was somewhere near. We had to get out of here fast. I looked up from my knees at Em/Suzanne. She stared down at me, mouth flat. “It’s over, Charlie,” she said. And I knew that Em was gone. Again. The scrill Lou had sprayed on her to protect her from Blanche’s cackle had been washed off during the dip in the water.
Blanche/Warren walked toward me from the shuttle that had swerved at us. She pointed a handgun to my left. I turned to see Zelda shaking her fur dry. Before I could move, I heard the shot. Zelda yelped and fell, tried to stand, and fell again. I leaped between her and Blanche/Warren. Blanche/Suzanne grabbed one of my arms, and Blanche/Hugo came and grabbed the other, and they dragged me away as Zelda crawled back into the water, whimpering.
Zelda! I cried in my mind. Zelda! Run! But she wasn’t in my mind, like she was shielding her pain from me.
Blanche/Warren strode to the water’s edge and fired down. I couldn’t see Zelda on the surface. Was she still alive? Could foxes swim underwater? Blanche/Warren unloaded her clip. I watched the surface of the water, waiting for Zelda’s head to pop up, her little snout, or her dead body, but I saw no sign of her.
Bruce, Pam, Lou, and Kaliah took their seats in the shuttle like the obedient subjects they now were. Seagulls perched on the roof above them. Blanche/Caroline, Warren’s bond, sat in the driver’s seat, talking to herself: “You have to tease it through the wood. You wrench on it like that, you break the blade. That’s why I put this reinforcement bolt in, to keep the blade steady. See? Just tease it through the wood.”
Blanche/Warren holstered her gun and walked over to me. Warren’s signature smirk was gone. Blanche was making the faces for him now. She pulled a small bushel of zip-ties from her coat pocket and doled them out to Blanche/Hugo and Blanche/Suzanne, who used them to bind my wrists and ankles. Still in shock from the crash, from losing Em again and Kaliah, from seeing Zelda shot, I offered no resistance.
After binding me, Blanche/Hugo and Blanche/Suzanne went to the shuttle and took their seats with what was left of our band of would-be world-savers, and Blanche/Caroline drove them off, still talking to herself, back to Rio Dell, back to the festivities.
Blanche/Warren crouched in front of me and leaned in so that her face was inches from mine. “I will be a benevolent god,” she said, voice low and rumbling, eyes bulging with rage. “I will be a personal god. When people pray, I will answer them. I will bring peace to the world. What about that don’t you like?” She slapped me hard enough for my head to whip to the side. My cheek stung. “You killed my Zaditorians,” she said. “I know everything your friends know now, all your plans. You’ve been a busy busy busy boy.” She slapped me again. “You put a Ghost in a fox? I’ve never seen that before. Your mother was right. I should have killed you. I laughed at her when she wanted to make Arampom gluten-free, but she was right. Clearly, you’re more dangerous than I thought. You have no idea how much killing you is going to hurt me. Special little Charlie, you had so much potential, so much. Now all of your misguided energy, all of your plans have come to nothing.” Spittle sprayed from her mouth. “I’m on my way to the DMV now. That little duckling, Naomi, thought she could hide my own breadcrumbs from me? She will find that I can also be a wrathful God.”
The words “duckling” and “breadcrumbs” stuck out in my mind like seagulls in a duck pond. She had not used them accidentally. Naomi’s spell was somehow still alive in Warren, despite Blanche’s occupation of him. But how much power did it still have? By breadcrumbs, I assumed she meant the sourdough totem. The last time I’d seen Naomi, she’d given me a rushed tutorial on how to use her spells: repeat the metaphor before the command.
A lust for vengeance as strong as my grief overcame me. If I couldn’t save the people I loved, I would ruin Blanche and her plans, and send her back to the void.
Blanche/Warren’s face softened. “Oh Charlie,” she said. “As angry as you’ve made me, I still wish I could end your life in a gentler way, but you sojourners are hard to kill. Burning, beheading, drowning, these are the easiest ways. Drowning, I believe, will be the most pleasant of the three. And it’s not like we have a shortage of water.” She shrugged, then stood, grabbed the zip-ties around my wrists, and tugged.
I relaxed my whole body, let it go limp, which wasn’t easy after Blanche/Warren had filled my head with the prospect of drowning.
Grunting, she pulled me closer to the edge of the flooded ditch. “Really, Charlie?” She breathed heavily. “Try to die with some dignity. After tonight, the whole universe will share this memory. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Try to think of some last words, at least.”
“When the storm
