Silence (34 page)

“What’s your name?” she whispered.

His eyes widened, and he looked straight at her, as if she were somehow something entirely unlike the Emma Hal she had been in the process of becoming for al of her life.

“Please,” she added.

“Morgan.” The two sylables were stretched and slow.

“Morgan, come to me.” She closed her hand around his arm, and she puled with al her insubstantial might. She felt the snap of chain, although she couldn’t see one, and then he was standing, chain, although she couldn’t see one, and then he was standing, hand in hers. His hand was cold. She smiled briefly. “Margaret?”

“Here, dear.”

“This is Morgan; keep an eye on him?”

The man looked confused, but Emma had no more time. She glanced at Chase and saw, even at this distance, that the fire was going out. She moved, then, to the other Necromancer; the woman was frowning.

“Longland,” she said. “I—the power—I think it’s gone.”

“On that?”

Emma moved around Longland’s back and reached, again, for the long, thin stretch of a person that was anchoring the fire that lapped against Eric. When they were this elongated, this distorted, it was hard to say much about the dead; she couldn’t quite tel if this one was male or female. But it didn’t realy matter.

She reached out and touched the ghost’s arm. “I’m Emma,”

she said, striving now to be as unthreatening as possible. “And I’m here to free you.”

She saw eyes that were six inches long, and very, very narrow, swivel to focus on her. She couldn’t realy tel if they widened. “What’s your name?” she whispered, trying not to flinch.

“Alexander.”

“Alexander,” she repeated. Her grip tightened, and she puled.

Again, she felt something snap. It was a clean, quick sensation.

Alexander appeared by her side, his hand in hers. His hand was Alexander appeared by her side, his hand in hers. His hand was also cold, and again, she smiled.

Alexander was younger than Morgan; he was older than Georges or Catherine, but younger, she thought, than Emily; his face hadn’t yet hardened into the jaw, nose, and forehead of an older boy. “Emma?”

She nodded. “Emma Hal.”

“You’re in danger,” he told her, shivering. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“My friends are here,” she told him quietly. She looked at Eric. He staggered as the fire guttered, as if he’d been playing tug-of-war with it and it had suddenly let go. He turned and he looked straight at Emma, something neither Longland nor Chase had done.

She saw him nod; it was slight and almost imperceptible.

“Alex,” she told the ghost, “you’re going to have to wait here for a minute.”

She turned to look at herself. At Emma Hal, who was standing, motionless, just before the front steps of a burning house. In the window, she caught a glimpse of Maria Copis’ face through the smoke; she didn’t, however, appear to be either burning or choking, and her young son, with his wide, luminescent eyes, was staring down at the street.

Emma started to approach herself, which was simultaneously comforting and realy, realy creepy, when she heard Longland speak.

“I have your friend,” he said. “And I advise you both to keep your distance if you want her to remain alive. Leila, take the your distance if you want her to remain alive. Leila, take the baby.”

She ran the rest of the way to her body, and leaped into it. It enclosed her like a womb. For just a moment, she felt it: heavy, solid, inertial, so unpleasantly confining she wanted to leap out again, and be free. But she didn’t, because she knew that without a body, she was just another one of the dead.

No, Margaret told her. Not the dead. But she felt both surprise and approval radiating from this internal voice.

She opened her eyes—her real eyes—and the world was the right color again. The grass was green-brown, the cars were solid, the houses were brick and stone and aluminum siding in various shades. The people wore clothing that didn’t suggest that gray was the new black.

The Necromancers were powerless. That’s what Emma thought, and that was her first mistake.

The woman drew a gun. She held it to the side of the baby’s head, and she told Alison, coldly, to let go.

And Alison, who might wel have held on had the gun been pressed against her own temple, shuddered and slowly unlocked her arms. Eric and Chase froze, and the other Necromancer—a man whose name was unknown—puled a second gun, while the woman Longland had caled Leila grabbed the baby. Her ability to point a gun while juggling a crying child was poor; she was clearly not a parent. Or not Michael, who, if he could ever bring himself to touch a real gun, could have done both.

Longland was stil in control, because he had Alison.

From the window above the street, the window from which From the window above the street, the window from which Maria Copis watched, Emma heard a scream.

It was not, however, Maria’s scream. Emma started to turn and something hit her, hard. It wasn’t painful, but it was so large, it drove her to her knees fast enough that concrete abraded her skin. Her hands tingled, and her hair rose as if caught in an electrical storm. She felt something leave her, something that she was not entirely in control of—and for better or worse, she let it go.

Leila screamed.

Fire erupted around her, and it was not green fire but red and orange, the heart and heat of the flames that had destroyed Rowan Avenue and, with it, so much of Maria’s life.

Eric shouted, Alison turned. From her place on the steps, Emma could feel the fire’s heat, and Alison was standing right beside it. She shouted and grabbed the baby just before he toppled out of Leila’s grip. Longland almost lost her, then, but he managed to hold on.

But the baby wasn’t burning.

The other man shouted something, loudly, and then he turned and pointed the gun—not at Eric or at Chase, but at Emma.

Even at this distance, she could see the barrel so clearly it might as wel have been a few inches from her forehead.

Longland turned in the direction the gun was pointing, and his eyes widened enough that she could see the whites. “Emma!” he shouted, “you fool! What have you done?”

She had time to cover her face or to duck, but she did neither.

Instead, almost horrified, she watched Leila burn. Burning was horrible, and although she’d known that, watching it was worse.

Any other death, she thought, almost numb. “Andrew!” she shouted. “Andrew, enough! Enough!”

But he didn’t hear her, and even if he did, she understood that it wasn’t entirely his doing. It couldn’t be; he was dead. She understood that what she’d felt was some part of Andrew’s power, pushed through her—but it shouldn’t have worked that way. And she had no idea how to stop what she’d let go, either.

Paralyzed, she knelt, staring at the barrel of a distant gun.

Wasn’t terribly surprised when she heard it fire.

THE BULLET FAILED TO REACH HER.

Confused, she stared as the gun wavered, dipped, and fel.

Confused, she stared as the gun wavered, dipped, and fel.

This was because the man who was aiming it staggered and then toppled, part of his face a sudden red blossom.

“Emma, dear,” Margaret said urgently, “Cal me now. Cal me out.”

The words made no sense. Emma watched the man topple and watched Longland suddenly curse, spinning, Alison almost forgotten.

Aly kicked him, hard, in the knee, stil grabbing the baby tightly. He reached for her with his free hand, and then let go, because he had a knife in his upper arm.

Alison ran. She ran, in a straight line, toward Emma, holding Maria Copis’ youngest child as if both their lives depended on it.

Emma, stil on her knees, looked up as Alison reached her, and then she pushed herself off the ground.

Another gunshot.

Merrick Longland cursed, turned, and light flared in the street.

Emma rose and opened her arms and hugged Alison fiercely; they were both shaking. “Aly—”

“Michael’s okay. Amy and Skip are okay. Longland left them —” Alison swalowed. “They were okay when we left them.”

Emma nodded. “Thank you.”

“Emma,” Margaret said. “Cal me. Now.”

“Margaret—”

“Do it, dear. I can’t emphasize this enough at the moment.”

Another gunshot. Emma looked; Longland was staggering.

Without Alison to stand behind, he had to face Chase and Eric, and she knew they would kil him. But death was supposed to and she knew they would kil him. But death was supposed to happen quickly and, at best, painlessly. Years of watching television had taught her that.

The truth was visceral and ugly, and although she hated everything Longland had done in the brief time she’d been aware of him, she couldn’t watch. But she also couldn’t look away.

“He would have kiled you al without blinking,” Margaret said quietly. “And Emma, call me out now.”

Emma lifted a hand. She whispered Margaret’s name into the noise of fighting: the sulen sound of flesh against flesh, the grunts, the swearing. She knew Margaret had arrived when Alison’s eyes widened slightly.

“Thank you, dear. I’m sorry to be so pushy. It’s always been a failing of mine.”

No kidding. Emma, however, was too weary to be unkind.

“Could he have—could he have defended himself against them if I hadn’t—”

“If you hadn’t taken Emily, yes. And more.”

Emma was silent for a long moment. “How are Alexander and Morgan?”

“A bit dazed, dear, and a bit confused. They’l be fine, I think.”

Emma nodded without looking at Margaret. It seemed important to her to watch, to bear witness, to truly understand the scope of the events she had put into motion. She didn’t regret them. She wouldn’t change much. Or maybe she would change everything, if she knew how.

change everything, if she knew how.

Andrew Copis would stil be alive. Her father would stil be alive. Nathan would stil be alive. People like Chase and Eric would be out of work.

But life didn’t work that way, in the end. You lived it, and it happened around you. If you were very lucky—and thinking this, she hugged Alison again—it happened while you stil had friends. She had to let go of Alison because the baby was screaming his lungs out, and if Alison bounced him up and down and moved around a bit, he quieted. He didn’t sleep, though.

“I think he’s hungry,” Alison told Emma.

“Which we can’t do anything about right now.”

When Longland finaly fel, Emma looked up to the bedroom window. “Maria,” she said quietly, “we’l get ladders and we’l get you both down. I think the baby’s hungry, and we’ve lost the diaper bag.”

From high above her head, Emma heard Maria Copis’ laugh.

It wasn’t an entirely steady laugh, but there was a thread of genuine amusement in it, along with relief and a touch of hysteria.

Eric had the decency to clean the blood off his hands before he approached them. Chase? Wel, he was Chase. And he looked bad; his face was a mess of blisters, and Emma thought it likely other parts of his body—al thankfuly hidden by clothing— looked about the same.

“Your poor hair,” she told him softly. “If I were you, I’d do it a favor and just shave it al off.”

He reached up and touched his hair, because his hair, unlike He reached up and touched his hair, because his hair, unlike his skin, had simply curled and shriveled.

“Alison,” Chase said, the word a question.

Alison took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m good. I’m,” she added, glancing at Emma, “fine.”

“You?” Eric asked Emma. He moved toward her, standing beside Alison and a little closer. It was a bit strange, but Emma had seen so much strange she didn’t worry much about it.

“I’l be better once I actualy set eyes on the rest of my friends. And the diaper bag,” she added, wincing, as she glanced at the baby. “Oh, and the ladders.”

He shook his head.

“You knew I was there.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugged. “You got out.”

“I did. Maria and Andrew are stil up in Maria’s room.”

“She—”

“It’s complicated. Don’t ask.” Then, taking a breath, she added, “but Andrew is fine, and he’s almost out of the fire.

Thank you. And Chase?”

“What?”

“I owe you an apology. You were right.”

He shrugged and glanced at Eric. “Yeah, wel. Eric is stil one up on me.”

“So, I have a question. If you and Eric were fighting with knives, who shot the other Necromancer?”

Eric and Chase exchanged a glance.

“I did. And now, Eric, and you, young lady with the baby, if “I did. And now, Eric, and you, young lady with the baby, if you’d care to move out of the way?” An older man, possibly fifty, possibly sixty, was standing about five yards away on the sidewalk. He was dressed in some version of summer casual that had to be decades old, but it suited him, and his clothing was sadly not the most notable thing about him. The gun that he held in his hand was. It was not—yet—pointed at anyone, but Emma stiffened anyway.