Lightbringer (20 page)

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
someone
hasn't been returning them. I'll totally buy you a new one for Christmas if you want. I already have a gift for you but there's this sexy little black flip phone that—”

“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 talk. And since you've decided texting is too
gauche
, we're gonna do it the old fashioned way. Analog style.”

From the corner of her eye Wendy spotted Jon and Chel round the corner of the school, bags in hand. They spotted Eddie and approached slowly, standing just behind him, only a few feet back but far enough out of her range that she couldn't reach them without struggling free of Eddie's iron grip on her arm.

“All of you are in on this?” Bitterness crept into Wendy's voice. “Manhandling me for whatever reason? Way to gang up, guys. I knew I could count on you three to stay classy.”

Jon shuffled his feet. “Wendy, we're worried about you. You're not sleeping.”

“I'm aware of that, thanks.” She jerked the arm in Eddie's hand and his grip tightened firmly, not quite painfully, but close. “I'm fine. Let me go.”

“You're not fine,” Chel replied coolly, snagging Wendy's bag from the bench beside her where Eddie had set it. The heavy weight of the books was almost too much for her; she tilted slightly as she hefted the bag over her shoulder. “Look, you talk with her all you want, but we're gonna miss the bus. I'll drop these off in her room.”

Eddie nodded. Jon moved around the side of the bench and sat beside Wendy. For the first time in weeks, Wendy really looked at her younger brother, and was more than a little horrified to see the puffiness in his cheeks, the dark circles beneath his eyes. His shirt was old and too tight; his gut was now hanging over the waistband of his jeans. Jon, realizing that Wendy was examining him closely, blushed dark red.

“Shut up,” he said before she could speak, and patted his belly. “I'm working on it.” He glanced over at Chel, who was patiently waiting at the sidewalk. She had a protein bar in one hand and was breaking chunks off to eat, grimacing with every bite. Her face, Wendy noted, was not as gaunt as before.

Jon gestured toward Chel. “Things have been tough on all of us, right? With Mom and everything, Chel and I sort of depended on you to stay cool and keep us sane.”

Ashamed, Wendy struggled with her reply. “That's not it. I—I—there's been these bad dreams and—”

“I'm not surprised, all that stress. Look, what we've been doing to you isn't fair,” Jon interrupted. “We figured you'd just keep on truckin'—at least I did—and I never thought ’til recently that maybe it'd be hard on you, you know, being in charge when Dad's gone. Then you Hulked out and got all mega-bitch and you took us by surprise. Well, you took me by surprise. I think you bitch-slapped Chel into a whole new personality.”

Eddie's hand dropped off her arm. Wendy rubbed the sore spot but she no longer felt the need to flee; it was as if she were rooted to the bench, stunned speechless by her normally taciturn brother's urgent tone.

“Wendy, you woke us both up, okay? You had your say, you really hurt my feelings and scared the crap out of Chel, but you got our attention and we listened.” He glanced over at Chel, still waiting out of earshot. “It may not look like it at first glance, but I promise, we're both working on it.”

“I'm sorry,” Wendy whispered. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“My mouth, my body, my fault,” he replied. “You're not the boss of me. Besides, I don't regret a single Cheeto.” He smiled faintly, still pink from embarrassment at her close assessment, and hugged her again.

“Just listen to what Eddie has to say to you, okay? You've been a ginormous hosebeast but you've been under a ton of stress with Dad being gone. Chel's pissed right now, but she's like me—deep down all we want is for you to be happy. That and for you to quit stealing Dad's car, cause he's gonna kick all our asses if he figures that one out.”

Then, hitching up his pants self-consciously, Jon picked up his things, bussed Wendy on the cheek, and left. He joined Chel at the bus stop, shouldered Wendy's bag himself, and they walked away toward the bright yellow line of buses pulling into the school's drive.

“Wow,” Wendy said, watching her too-thin sister and growing-overweight brother drift into the throng of students climbing aboard their rides home. “Jon grew a pair. Big brass ones.”

“Yep,” Eddie agreed, “the day comes in every young boy's life when he's called a fatass by his beloved older sister. Or so I've been told, being an only child and all.”

Wendy winced. “I've really been in my own world, haven't I?”

“That's a polite way of putting it,” Eddie replied. “Another way is that you've been a screaming bitch, impossible to be around, um…almost completely irresponsible except for school and your ‘side job.’ And, oh, yeah, I did mention total bitch, right?”

“I think so,” Wendy replied dryly.

“Because it bears mentioning,” Eddie said, insistent. “Over and over again.”

“I get the point, Eddie.”

“No, darling, I don't think you really do. But you will. Walk with me. It'll be like old times. I'll drive you home and you, me foine girl, can listen to ol' Eddie talk.”

The grounds were quickly emptying. Eddie picked up his own bag, slung a loose arm around her waist, and guided her toward the parking lot and his car.

“See, the fact of the matter is, what Jon said aside, none of us
depend
on you to be a sane and rational human being. At least not all the time. But sometimes it'd be nice. And if there's something wrong, we like to know about it so we can at least
avoid
the bitchiness if we can't deal with it.”

“There's nothing wrong.”

“Sure there isn't. Right. Chel's the one with the eating problem, but you've gotten werry-werry thin, me foine chickadee.”

Done playing, Eddie dropped the overblown accent and brushed a tender finger across each of her cheekbones. “You've got a full set of matching bags under those baby browns of yours, and I do believe so much scowling is going to cause early onset wrinklage. At this rate, you're going to be the first MVHS graduate with grey hair.”

Self-consciously, Wendy touched her head. “I said I'm fine! Drop it, okay?”

Groaning, Eddie grabbed her by the wrist, shaking it slightly. “Wendy, look, I can totally stand you ignoring my calls, not responding to my texts, deleting my emails. I get that I was the jerk first—I got totally wrapped up in a girl and forgot I had friends for a while, yeah, sure. I deserve a little no-Wendy time. But the twins, annoying as they are, didn't do anything to you they haven't done before. And with your dad gone all the time and your mom in the hospital—”

“Hey—”

Eddie held up a hand to stall her protest as they reached the parking lot. “Wendy darling, I love you, but you are going to shut up and you are going to listen to me, if it's the last thing I do in this friendship. You owe me that at least. Now hush up and let me finish.”

He waited until it looked like Wendy wasn't going to respond and continued on. “Ahem, now, like I was saying, with your mom in the hospital and all, you're like, woman of the house. Hell, screw that, you're master of the house. And you, miss master, haven't been treating the rest of the house particularly well.”

“I've been busy,” Wendy mumbled as Eddie opened the passenger side door and ushered her inside. She turned her face to the window, refusing to look at him. “With, you know, my special stuff.”

“Right, well, your ‘stuff’ is going to have to wait for a while, I think.” Eddie shut the door, moved around the car, and slid into the driver's seat. “You get on Chel for using the Phentermine, but don't think I haven't seen those bottles of No-Doz you've been hiding.”

“Hey,” Wendy protested, stung, “I'm not the one abusing diet pills just to fit into some bleached-sheeple-douchebag club!” She waved her hands above her head. “Rah-rah, sis-boom-bah, gooooo bulimics!”

“No,” he replied sternly, “you're the one abusing caffeine pills and chugging Red Bull so you can go and hang out with dead people all night. Which is crazier, I wonder?”

Wrapping her arms around her middle, Wendy groaned and sank back against the passenger seat. “It's not the same thing. I need the caffeine. There've been dreams—”

“Which I didn't listen to you about,” Eddie said. “And I'm really super sorry about that. But now you've got my full attention. Consider me the Wendy-Wikipedia, okay? I want you to tell me all about everything that's been going on with you, especially these nightmares or whatever. Dr. Eddie is in and I'll even waive the five cent charge.”

“Not now.”

He adjusted the rear view mirror, and checked the mirrors on each side. “Fine, when?”

“Eddie—”

“Don't ‘Eddie’ me in that tone of voice, Wendy. What in the hell can be so bad that you're afraid of falling asleep? What, you got Freddy Krueger in there, slicing people up? Are you going to drop dead if you fall asleep? Because the way things are going right now, you're going to drop dead if you
don't
fall asleep.”

“It's my body, Ed.”

“It may be your body but I've got a baseball bat. I've got no problem letting you sleep off a concussion. Talk.”

“Fine. I spend just about every night avoiding sleep and running around town reaping. I still haven't found my mom. Her soul's been threatened by a dead crazy chick with skin like rotting lettuce. I won't find her unless I keep looking so, neatly put, I have to do this, okay?”

“I get why you're worried about your mom, but last I checked you were back to reaping anyone you came across, not just the bad dudes who chased you down. Is that still the deal?”

Irritated, Wendy refused to answer.

“So it's still not just the creepy, rotting bad guys?” He waited for her reply and when it became clear that she wasn't going to give one, he groaned. “Wendy, I've said it before and I'll say it again, why exactly do you think you have to do this?”