happened here was clear. Footsteps in the dust were marred by long, swishing swipes. Rider essence lay in puddles, silver pools that dried to dark and tainted grey. The floor was riddled with dime-sized holes, bored through in Swiss cheese patterns, and there was an unmistakable smell of wet rot in the air.
The Walkers had grown tired of trying to pick the Lost off one by one and had staged a mass assault.
“Those hoods snatched Dora,” Elle told him later, after they’d gone through the remnants of the Lost to assess the damage and estimate a sort of head-count of the taken. “Specs too. The rest of the Riders are on the lam, heading east. I sent Tubs with Kurtz, for safety.” Elle rubbed the bridge of her nose with one hand, filthy with dust and the day’s fight. Her other arm lay in her lap, lumpy at the elbow and oozing a thin stream of essence, snapped in four separate places. Large hunks of her golden hair were sheared away at the skull; she now had a jagged cut that wound across her forehead and diagonally down one cheek. It matched his scar.
Catching him examining her face, Elle’s eyes flashed warning. “I told them to pack their glad rags and get a wiggle on, no turning around. Kurtz took charge and they’re heading for Nevada. They ain’t ever coming back.” She almost spat the words.
So that was it. They were alone. Why was he not surprised?
Piotr nodded, numb, and left Elle’s side, wandering through the bookstore. He picked up an item here, an item there. Dora’s sketchbook had been left behind. It was not made of the same stuff she was; he would not be able to tell if she was safe by looking at it. All the same, Specs’ glasses were whole, and that indicated that Specs, at least, was unharmed. It was hope. Piotr seized on that.
Without one of the Lost there to help, the healing process took a few weeks. When James was up and on his feet again, he and Elle organized a citywide search program. “If we can’t find them like this,” he claimed, his dangling cornrows brushing the edges of the map Elle had scrounged from amid the rotting books, “we won’t find them.”
Enough time had passed that it was looking like the remaining Riders weren’t going to find more than scattered clues. The Lost appeared permanently gone, but at least Dunn’s hat remained solid, as did Specs’ glasses and Tommy’s cloak. They were still alive—at least, in a manner of speaking.
Practical by nature, Piotr set out each day expecting nothing and came back with exactly that. So it was to his great surprise when, traveling through the edges of Mountain View towards San Jose, a copy of the map with the search parameters in one hand and a flare in the other, he spotted a quartet of Walkers. One of them was struggling with a small and shrieking figure. A familiar figure.
“Specs!” Piotr yelled and, without thought or plan, dropped the paper and flare, flinging himself into the fray.
The Walkers had changed and not for the better. These beasts had faces elongated into unimaginable abominations, twisted and warped into monstrous shapes, with stitches of sinew thick as twine holding the gaping flaps of their essence together. These Walkers had been healed and then marred again. The purposeful scars were doubly hideous, lying so starkly against the fresh flesh.
Piotr, approaching at speed, drew Elle’s dagger and leapt at the Walker holding Specs. The Walker went down—end over end—and Specs, yelling with surprise and glee, tugged free.
“Piotr! Piotr! I knew you’d come! I knew it!”
Mindless with rage, Piotr began slashing at the Walker. Every cut he made—shallow and deep alike—broke fragile skin and spilled a foul-smelling, noxious liquid. It was not essence; it was too thin, too runny, and when it touched his hands, it stung.
Another fine spray of droplets flew, dousing him, and Piotr felt the burn of it eating into his skin, his pants and arms. Now he knew what the holes had been—these Walkers bled something beyond mere essence. Whatever they bled was acid to ghosts, essence-burning and foul, like unadulterated death. Piotr ignored the pain and continued stabbing.
Furious or not, Piotr was still only one man, and one who was severely outnumbered. Before he could finish off the Walker, two of the others dragged him, kicking and cursing, free. The other, moving swiftly, corralled and captured Specs again. They forced him to kneel on the ground. One gripped him by the hair, dragging his head back and exposing his neck. The other wrapped powerful fingers around his wrists, locking him in place.
“Rider.” Piotr was unsure which one of the Walkers spoke, as all four of them—including the one he’d attacked, which was only just now gaining its feet—nodded. “It is a Rider, yes, yes. Tough meat.”
“Filthy kid-killing pigs,” Piotr spat back, jerking left and right but unable to free himself. He began cursing as violently and loudly as he could, lapsing into Russian and back to English without thought, hoping that perhaps Elle, whose patrol circuit was supposed to cross his today, would hear. The Walkers ignored his tirade, seeming content to talk among themselves.
“White Lady will want him.” More nods all around.
One frigid finger ran across Piotr’s neck, over his chin, and pushed its way into his mouth. He could feel burning begin as the blood-flecked nail scratched the inside of his cheek. It was sharp and strong enough to cut him deeply. Specs, watching from a few feet away, moaned.
“Eat his eyes. Suck him dry.” Nod-nod, agreement all around.
“Greedy Lady,” one of the Walkers suggested. “All the meat for her, even tough meat. All the tasty for later. No tasty for us.”
It sounded almost forlorn at this tidbit, and somewhat annoyed. The finger in Piotr’s mouth withdrew, pulled back, and then stabbed him in the shoulder hard enough to pierce him through. The finger, knuckle-deep in his shoulder, twisted and wiggled, having just enough room to poke Piotr in the collarbone. The shock of its jagged nail scraping and flicking at his bone was enough to elicit a shrill and terrified scream.
“All the tasty for her plan,” the Walker said again, dropping down so it was face to face with Piotr. Its tongue, obscenely long and mottled grey, rolled out of its mouth and rasped its way over Piotr’s cheeks, licking away his sweat and tears. The end was forked like a snake’s and flicked with eerie rapidity, sliding over his eyes and collecting the agonized tears that leaked from the corners. “No tasty for us…but Rider could be tasty. Tough, yes, but a tasty we don’t have to share. We eat Rider instead.”
The hands binding his wrists tightened and Piotr closed his eyes, preparing for the worst.
It took Eddie, waiting for Wendy by her locker the day school let out for Christmas break, to knock some sense into her.
“Hey hot stuff,” he said as she spun the lock and started sorting through her books, choosing which ones would go home over break and which she’d leave at school.
“I see you’re scowly as usual.” Eddie waited and when she didn’t answer, added, “So, is your phone broken? Cuz I’ve left you, like, a hundred or so texts and
“Lay off,” she said, not unkindly and, with a shrug, merely piled the whole lot into her bag. The nightmares that kept her up to all hours had long since begun to take their toll; Wendy was passing her courses but only just barely. Even math had begun to slip.
White Lady’s threats or not, Wendy intended to take a few days off reaping and spend part of her holiday studying up. The ACTs and SATs were coming up and at this rate there was no way she’d get a scholarship. Not like she had much of a choice where to go to school. Until Mom came out of her coma, it was community college for her and Wendy knew it.
“You know, grumble-puss, I don’t think I’m gonna,” Eddie replied. His voice was so mellow, his smile so sincere, that Wendy missed what he was saying altogether.
Wendy sighed, rolled her eyes, and finally turned to face him. Unlike her, Eddie looked well rested. His clothing was neat and clean, his hair had been freshly dyed glossy blue-black, and the kohl lining his eyes was smudge-free. “Gonna what?”
“Lay off.” Reaching past Wendy, Eddie shut her locker door with a sharp snap. Then, taking her elbow in one hand, he firmly guided her past the pulsing throng of other students gathering their things and fleeing the building, to a bench outside.
There he forced her to sit.
“Eddie. Eddie! Hey, let go!” Irritated with his gall, Wendy struggled, but Eddie’s grip tightened and he refused to unhand her. “Eds, this is not funny.”
“Never said it was,” he replied as pleasantly as before. “But you, missy, and I are going to have a bit of a
