Monsters (Ashes Trilogy 3)

“No”—but she could barely hear herself. “Chris, run, get away, run—”

There was a sudden snap, either the monster letting go, or her finally recalling it, she couldn’t be sure. Her vision cleared and fixed on Buck, hovering over her, a paw on her chest. Her gaze shifted to jagged chinks of sky showing through branches. Fell off my horse. Struggling to a sit, she wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth and listened to her pulse thunder.

That was Chris. She was almost positive. The horse, a blood bay, was right, and she’d gotten a fleeting look at his face . . . Right hair, the face was the same, but bruised, and there was something wrong with his eyes. “Red,” she breathed. Buck nudged her neck, and she let herself sag against the wolfdog. Chris’s eyes were red. The same as Peter’s? No, the more she thought about it, the surer she was that Chris was hurt. From that girl’s perspective, Chris was food: blood and salt, fear and sweat. Meat.

Strong, too, that red storm. Every time that push-push go-go amped up, her monster leaked through. Throttling it back when there were only Finn and a few altered Changed around wasn’t as hard. But an increase in numbers meant more intensity, a wider spread. She wasn’t sure she could maintain control.

Scraping up the Uzi from where she’d dropped it, she clawed to her feet. For a moment, she thought about leaving the green canvas medic pack, now stuffed to capacity not only with medical supplies but several books and odds and ends she’d picked up along the way. The pack would only add weight, slow her down.

But Chris looked hurt. Hefting the pack onto her shoulders, she broke into a staggering, wobbly run, with Buck trotting alongside. Chris is here, and he’s in trouble. I’ve got to do something to help, somehow.

If she only could figure out what.

Passing through Rule—its deserted streets, those wrecked houses— was like wandering through the defunct set of a disaster movie. The windows of many houses were shattered. Some had no doors. She paused only once: at Jess’s house, its door hanging askew like a rotten tooth ready to fall from its socket. Part of her wanted to go inside. She’d left her parents behind, squared on the desk in her room. But the chances of their ashes still being there were about as good as her stopping Finn.

Need to keep going . She eyed a red, spray-painted X that wept from the lintel over the ruined door. It’s like that old Bible story, the one about the Angel of Death. Except all these houses hadn’t been passed over. There were still bodies inside a few, and dead Changed, too.

But Chris was among the living, and the living needed help. And Peter, Wolf, Penny . . . what do I do, what should I do? She was still turning that over as she neared the square, dodging from house to house, slinking through backyards. As she remembered the square’s layout, the church was on the northwest corner. Jess’s house was west of the square, which meant she was coming up behind the village hall. What she’d do once she got there, she didn’t know. Was there a back entrance, a way into the building? If so . . . what then? Make her way to the roof ? Could she even do that? How would that help?

You’d better figure this out, honey. The fug of all those Changed, altered and otherwise, bled through the air, growing stronger the closer she got. Finn’s people must be nearly to the square. Their stink made the hackles rise in a Mohawk along Buck’s spine. She felt her monster suddenly perk right up, too—and, a split second later, understood why as she teased out an odor of shadows and cool mist and rot.

Wolf. She parsed more smells, got denim and wintergreen, hard steel and desperation mingling with the stench of chemo: Peter’s there, too.

So tempting to give the monster a little leash, see if it might slip behind Wolf ’s eyes. What if I could control it? Send it out to very specific targets? That was . . . a little creepy, and crazy, too. Let the red storm set its hook, and she’d be as helpless as a swimmer in a rip current. Yet the idea of actually letting the monster go, making it work for her . . . Can I do that? Her hand snuck to caress the wolfdog’s neck. God, this would be like naming her monster, which her cancer docs encouraged: fighting back by thinking of the monster as something separate and apart. One guy even gave his cancer a Twitter account. She had wanted no part of her tumor: not to name it, draw it, visualize it. She’d only fought until she couldn’t fight anymore, and left for the Waucamaw, where her tumor became a monster with slitty eyes and needle-teeth—and had saved her life, a couple of times over now.

Face it, Alex, the monster is a part of you, whether you like it or not. “So what are you saying, you nut?” she murmured. “You want to jump off Blackrocks? Gonna send out the monster with a message?” It was crazy scifry. But Finn does it, somehow. Look at those weird Changed and poor Peter. But what if she got snagged by the red storm and couldn’t get free? What if who she was drowned in it? Somehow, she thought that could happen.

People, all old, gathering in the square. Her schnoz was full of fusty stained underwear and doughy skin. She heard them, too, a low buzz. But no kids. Where could they be? She didn’t smell Chris either, and her stomach tightened with dread. Take it easy. He was on a horse. If he was smart, he was already long gone. With enough warning, all the kids might be, too. Could be why she smelled none. Except Finn made his move while it was still dark. So how would Rule have known Finn was on his way?

A distant crackle, like a string of firecrackers. She glanced north. Someone shooting out there, but far away, easily several miles. The kids? Maybe, and probably not fighting Finn’s people. She’d followed him long enough to know that no one had split off from the main group.

Oh God. What if those were Rule’s kids, and there were Changed out there? Would Finn’s, well . . . signal bleed that far? That wide? How much range did this guy have?

Range, there’s something about that; that kid, Jasper, mentioned Peter, and how Peter got better whenever Finn was further away. He said if Finn died, the network would fall apart.

She’d thought of the same thing when trying to figure out how Finn managed all those Changed. I know the signal hops because the monster does, and I go along for the ride. And look what had happened to her when Finn’s Changed attacked that plateau: big surge, huge signal, and she woke up on the snow. But what does that mean? How can I use this? What does it mean?

Dead ahead, she spied a short alley, lined with detached garages, that trickled into the village hall’s parking lot. Nosed to the back wall alongside a large green Dumpster were three sheriffs’ cruisers, minus their tires and doors, resting on their rims. To the right was a single driveway that led to the square. The long, stained-glass breezeway connecting the school to the church was on her left. Tall trees marched up to the rectory and school, and, as she recalled, a side door into the church off a courtyard.