“You’re up far earlier than I’d expected,” Wyatt says. He closes the book and sets it on his lap, baring his chest. I manage to maintain eye contact, but I can feel my gaze working hard to drift to his pecs like magnetism. “Had I known you were up I would’ve invited you on our morning flight.”
“Another time,” I say. I’d love to take him up on that. It’s something to get used to in case I ever get to become a Halo Knight.
“You’ve caught me at an interesting time, love. I’m reading up on your predecessor’s history. Your first attempt at retrocycling was astounding, though I believe it will go more swimmingly if you focus on returning to the day of his death. Maribelle sensed she was close to Sera’s, and since the two died on the same day, perhaps that will be your way in too.”
“That works for me.”
“Shall we have a little Bautista Book Club?”
There’s only a few pages about Bautista in The Halo Blacklist, but Wyatt thinks it’s all worth studying up on. There isn’t a ton that I don’t already know about Bautista from Brighton obsessing about him over the years and his profile at the museum, but refreshing my memory won’t hurt.
Bautista de León was twenty years old when he was making headlines for challenging Blood Casters in New York. The gang had been robbing banks, intimidating judges and politicians, and killing alchemists who were attempting to create potions to neutralize their powers. Their streak had gone unchecked until Bautista started tracking their patterns, a skill that I definitely don’t have. He was holding his own in fights, but as the Blood Casters began grooming other young people—later called acolytes—to do their dirty work, Bautista knew he needed a team. He formed the Spell Walkers to combat all oppositions to peace. It took a while before they won over the public, but they became a valuable force with their track record of saving lives and incapacitating Blood Casters long enough for the authorities to lock them up in the Bounds. Four years later, Bautista was killed inside a weapons factory, and while many mourned him, the writer of this text claimed that if Bautista ever surfaced again with a phoenix’s illegal powers, the Haloes would make sure his next death was as permanent as Keon Máximo’s.
“Not the happiest of endings,” I say.
“Haloes have some fiery hearts,” Wyatt says.
“Hopefully none of them find out their history books are wrong about Keon.”
Since the Dayrose salve didn’t restore me to full health, I decide to keep busy digging up more information about Bautista until I have the strength to try retrocycling again. I borrow Brighton’s laptop, and he gets me started with a dozen tabs to review while he spends time in the training room with Prudencia. I feel some k
ind of way about him getting more and more comfortable with powers I’m dead set on binding, but we got to make sure we’re strong enough to get close to the Blood Casters if we want to have any chance of disempowering them.
The first tab is a YouTube video of Bautista being interviewed remotely by an anchorwoman on CNN explaining his intentions with the Spell Walkers. I’ve seen broadcasts of him throughout the years, and even though this video is a repeat, it’s the first time I’m seeing life in him since discovering our link. His head is buzzed and he’s not rocking any facial hair. He’s comfortable in front of the camera, and his charisma really sells him as the hero millions once celebrated.
Last fall it was announced that a movie about Bautista’s life was in the works, and fans—Brighton included—were very vocal about which actors they believed could actually match his charm. But the studio canceled the project after the Blackout to distance themselves from the Spell Walkers. Brighton was pissed that the movie wasn’t happening, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been sliding into the DMs of producers trying to sell the rights to our story.
There’s an article with links to Bautista’s public killstreaks. I hold my breath while clicking into a grainy video of Bautista battling a hydra specter with two heads and four arms. The specter charges Bautista with an infinity-ender dagger, but Bautista is faster, shoulder rolling toward an ax that’s laid out on the street. He scoops it up, sets it ablaze with golden flames, and swings it so quickly that I see one head decapitated before I close the video; I trust the second head came clean off too.
I groan into my hands.
“What’s the matter?” Wyatt asks.
“I come from killers, and I’m an idiot if I think I’m going to get out of this war without following in their footsteps.”
“It’s inevitable in our line of work, no?”
I tell him all about how the Spell Walkers have argued this point too, and even though they’re also interested in avoiding fatalities, I have no clue if they’ve killed before and what the circumstances were. Maribelle burnt Anklin Prince alive, and she’s gunning for June’s blood. And then there’s Brighton, who, ever since we first got pulled into the orbit of the Spell Walkers, has told me that killing to save the world is different.
“I don’t believe heroes should have body counts.”
“Then I’m not a hero in your books,” Wyatt says.
That catches me off guard. “Really? But you don’t even battle.”
“Again, it’s in our line of work. Three years ago, I was visiting the States to investigate a farm in Colorado that was stealing phoenix eggs for breeding. It happened to be the night of the Future Watcher, that lovely little prime constellation that aids celestials with all forms of foresight. My mum and dad had seen it years before, so they stayed in to prep while Nox and I flew atop the Chalk Cliffs to stargaze. Unfortunately, a psychic had sold us out to an alchemist and specter aspirant on the hunt for a phoenix, and we were ambushed.”
Wyatt looks even more horrified than when he was telling me about the history of cruelty Nox suffered from his former companion.
“You don’t have to talk about this. I’m not judging you,” I say.
“No, no. It’s important. It was a firsthand experience dealing with one’s violent desperation to become a specter. Paired beautifully with another great American problem—being held at wandpoint. The alchemist trapped Nox in an electric net that shocked him the more he resisted. I had one opportunity to snatch the wand and I took it. I cast spells, and while I didn’t intend to kill them, kill them I did.” Wyatt stares out the open window, fixed on the sky. “It was self-defense, but that’s a lot to take on at seventeen. It took about a year of therapy before I accepted that I’m not like those predators. My hope for you, sweet Emil, is that you’re kind to yourself if you ever have to kill for those you love. I can’t imagine you’ll feel alive if you have the opportunity to save them and don’t take it.”
After a sleep troubled with haunting nightmares of Bautista’s heroics, I settle into the meditation room shortly after dawn, more determined than ever to make sure my life doesn’t echo his. Brighton isn’t trying this time, only observing with Prudencia, and he’s managing a pretty neutral attitude about it, I got to say. Maribelle is eager to give retrocycling another go. She sits cross-legged in front of me as Wyatt and Tala remind us that the goal is to find Sera and Bautista on their last day alive.
“Understood,” Maribelle says.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her.