“Piotr, wait!” Wendy jumped to her feet, hands outstretched, but before she could take the half dozen steps to the window, he was gone.
In her dreams, Wendy ran.
She was on the track at school, circling the field over and over again, the stitch in her side ablaze with pain, her legs trembling, the soles of her bare feet pounding the pavement in a rhythmic staccato. Stinging sweat ran in her eyes, blurring her vision, and every inhalation burned. Even her teeth ached, though whether from the cold or the exertion, Wendy was unsure. All she knew was that if she stopped running, even for one moment, she’d see that dim silver flicker at the edge of the field and she would have to follow it. She’d force her way through the woods again, nettles stinging her calves, burrs catching in her socks, branches whipping across her face, until she found the man again, still under the fall of eucalyptus deadwood.
She didn’t want to see him again. She’d had enough of death and ghosts.
It was too much. She couldn’t go on but she forced herself to take the next step and then the next. Wendy pushed on, pushed on, and when her leg gave out, knee buckling and calf tightening in an excruciating charley horse, Wendy shrieked, hitting the ground with shoulder and hip. She cried, writhing on the ground, hair pooling beneath her head. The pain sunk deep, angry fingers into her muscles and
It took a long, long time for Wendy to realize blessed, numbing cold was working its way through her leg. Her cries tapered off; sniffling, she wiped her wrist across her face and struggled to sit up.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” the White Lady said, sitting back on her haunches and rising in a creaking, graceful arc. Where her hands had pressed into Wendy’s leg, blue flesh rimmed in ice slowly warmed. “Push yourself too hard and you’ll never catch up with me.”
“Go away.” Wendy flopped back to the ground and glared up at the stars above. She tried to find the Big Dipper but couldn’t. The stars were different here, bigger and brighter, closer to the earth. The air was startlingly cold, especially for a California night. Wendy wished that she’d dreamed herself a jacket.
“The Rider is an idiot,” the White Lady said, moving her fingers to the back of Wendy’s ankle, rotating the cuff gently. “Even I can see that you provide us a good service. I don’t appreciate you meddling in my affairs, don’t get me wrong, but certain Shades have been clinging to the last vestiges of life for far too long. They need to be put out of their misery.”
Irritated that the news of her fight with Piotr had flown so fast to the enemy’s ears, Wendy gritted her teeth and feebly swiped at the White Lady’s icy hands. Chuckling at Wendy’s irritation, the White Lady released her ankle. “You didn’t hurt anything. You’ll be sore in the morning, but nothing tore.”
“Didn’t I just tell you to go away?”
“Would that I could. You called me here.”
Wendy snorted. “I did not.”
The White Lady shrugged. “Suit yourself. Feel free to leave, then. You won’t see me shedding a tear. If I can still cry.” She chuckled. “I haven’t tried.”
Sniffing, Wendy shivered. When the White Lady handed her a jacket formed of the strange dream-stuff, she took it without comment and slid gratefully into its warmth. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Don’t you? Not even one question?”
“You’re right. I do have one question for you.” Wendy sat up, chin jutted out and glared at the White Lady. “Destroy Dunn yet?”
Patting her thighs and sitting down beside Wendy, the White Lady sighed. “Come now, Lightbringer, don’t be stupid. You and I both know that if I had, you’d have heard about it by now. Your fortnight isn’t up for two more days.” Her phalanges scraped the edge of the track, digging furrows in the dirt. “But then again, maybe I should. I tire of our constant head-butting. It certainly would prove a point, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll back off,” Wendy said. “On one condition. And only that condition.”
“Indeed? Well, please, elucidate. What in heaven or earth could move the mighty Lightbringer to lower herself to actually deal with me?”
“You tell me why you’re kidnapping the Lost.” Wendy scowled. “And quit calling me the ‘mighty Lightbringer.’ That shit is getting old.”
“Absolutely not.” The White Lady shook her head. “No deal.”
“You’re obviously not feeding them to the Walkers,” Wendy pressed, “and you don’t exactly seem the motherly type. Surely there’s some reason other than just shits and giggles. Tell me why and I’ll lay off the Walkers unless they attack me first.”
“Why are you seeing a dead boy in your room every night? We all have our own reasons for the things we do.” The White Lady tsked softly. “Kissing the dead instead of reaping them? For shame, girl. What would your mother say?”
“You could ask her.” Wendy tapped her tongue ring against her teeth. “Oh, no, you can’t, can you? You still haven’t found her. All that bluster and you’re just as lost as I am—can’t find one single ghost.”
“She knows the Never well,” the White Lady admitted. “I’m starting to admire her.”
“Just starting to?”
“Hush, girl. You’ll never hear one of my kind praising one of yours.” She sniffed. “It simply isn’t done.”
“This isn’t me agreeing to a truce,” Wendy warned. “Just so you know.”
“The time for truce is long over.” The White Lady leaned forward so that the remains of her chin rested on her knees, the rest of her face still cast in the hood’s deep shadow. “You’re right. I can’t destroy Dunn…yet. I know you’ll never stop hunting my Walkers. So we must agree to disagree, I suppose. No more talks of truce. No deal. Here on out, it’s open war between the two of us. Agreed?”
Wendy sighed. “Agreed.”
“When I find your mother—and I will find her—I’m going to obliterate her. Just so you know.” The White Lady laughed and there was a dark edge to her mirth, an underlying anger that Wendy would’ve been deaf to miss. “I tire of this.”
“You talk, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah.”
The White Lady stood. “Do you even know why you called me here?”
“I didn’t.” Wendy closed her eyes. “Get out.”
“As you wish, Lightbringer.” The White Lady began to move away. “But, just a reminder, we’re at war, girl. No more nice-nice. If I can, I’ll have you torn to shreds.”
“Bring it. You send ’em my way, I’ll keep knocking them down.”
“You can’t keep up this pace. You’ve realized that, haven’t you?” The White Lady chuckled. “One day you’re going to reap too many souls in a row and leave yourself weak. All I have to do is wait.” The wind sighed in the trees and the White Lady sighed with it. “I think I’ll have you kneel before me, before I rip your soul apart. Fitting, isn’t it? A simple ghostie like me destroying the mighty Lightbringer? Just the idea of it leaves me all a-tingle.”
“Blah, blah, blah. We’re done here.”
“Yes, Wendy, I think we are. Goodnight.”
When Wendy opened her eyes, the White Lady was gone. She was still dreaming, she knew, and if she wanted to, she could wake up. But waking up would mean facing the fight she and Piotr had just had; facing reality.
Wrapping her arms around her chest, Wendy conjured up a warm, sunlit beach and sank deeper into her dream. Plenty of time to be miserable in the waking, living world. Right now she just wanted peace.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Piotr stormed out of Wendy’s bedroom he had no idea where he was to go. Part of him knew he should head north, back into the city, to warn the others that the Lightbringer had a very good idea where they were located. Piotr had even begun the long trek back to Elle’s when he realized that Wendy had known about the bookstore for over a month now; if she had wanted to tear every Rider in the Bay Area apart she could have done so already. Instead she’d held off, and Piotr had a sneaking suspicion he knew why. For him.
Unsure which option was best, Piotr skulked around town, refusing to go back to the bookstore but unwilling
