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“I saw you on the list of potential pages.” She was the fierce leader of a California biker gang and a metal-worker who’d forged a garrison out of steel. Stiff competition.
“Okay, put me out of my misery. Did Kos confirm you as the last Sword?”
“Non. Not before she . . . passed away.”
“Say again?”
“She died of plague.” I explained how the Pentacles had betrayed the Swords and how I’d found Kos in that cell.
Brun exhaled over the transmission. “The Noodler’s gonna take this bad. He’s one of the last four potentials still alive.”
I’d seen him on the list too. “Why do they call him the Noodler?”
“Because he used to noodle. You know, sticking his bare hands into underwater hidey-holes for fish. He founded a colony of folks in Missouri who harvest reptiles and creepy-crawlies. It’s good eating, if you’re hungry enough.”
“You said there’re four potentials still alive. Who’s the other one?”
“Gator Bait in central Florida. She put together a fort in the middle of an alligator farm. Alligators fared okay in the Flash, and they also make great guardgators. It’s not often you can eat your own security system.”
“What does she feed them?” The tour guides in Louisiana once used chickens. Not a lot of chickens left.
“Bagmen. Win-win.”
“At least they’re good for something.” If Sol and I got our way, we planned to deanimate them all across the world. As his abilities grew, he’d figured out how to tap a new level of his rays to render a zombie to dust, but so far only one at a time, and in close contact. His goal was to shine that ray over the entire globe.
“So we’ll never know which one of us is the Page.” Brun sighed. “I take it the Pentacles got what was coming to them?”
“They did. Which leaves the Wands.”
“Heard anything about them?”
The Swords had binders of information about the Majors, but nothing new that Dominija hadn’t already shared. Yet their notes about the Wands had been interesting. “According to accounts from survivors out in the Ash, the entire suit is female. Folks say they appear, watch major events unfold, then disappear. They’re also known as the Stix.” When Evie and the others had felt as if someone was watching, had they been right?
“Yeah, Kos mentioned something about that. Was hoping you’d learned more.”
“Rumors held they were buying women.” Two marauders had considered selling Evie to the Stix.
“They are. Buying them, freeing them, and punishing the sellers.”
“Good for them.” Maybe the Wands were respectable like the Swords.
“Hey, weren’t you riding with a bunch of Majors?”
“Got some here with me right now,” I said, not ready to elaborate.
The guys and I were doing okay, all things considered. Mornings we holed up in the library to study everything from military strategy to architecture and engineering. I might not be as accomplished as the Swords, but I could try to earn the name, and the world would need builders once the apocalypse ended.
I’d learned a lot about construction from Fort Arcana, and I had a knack for it, but I set myself to the task of learning even more.
When I’d asked Dominija for more titles from his own library, he’d also sent me a folder on Haven, with blueprints and a slew of pictures he’d sourced before the Flash. He knew I’d once told Evie that I would rebuild it for her and that we’d begin a life together in Louisiana. But that was before she’d married Dominija and had a kid with him.
I’d texted the Reaper: You keep behaving like you’re a goner. Stop acting like this is a done thing.
Dominija: Stop acting like it ain’t. Gods, you’re wearing off on me, mortal.
Heh.
After library time, me and the guys would do target practice. Nights we watched old DVDs. Gabe had fallen in love with movies, getting references that he never had before.
Brun said, “Majors living in the lair of the Swords? Kos must be turning over in her grave. Not that she got a grave from what you described, but you know what I mean. That hangar was never meant to support Majors. We need ’em dead, kiddo. That’s the only way for the world to come back.”
“Ain’t that simple.”
Brun made a sound of frustration. “Don’t know if anyone’s filled you in about current affairs, but we’re dropping like flies out here. Have you guys had one of those killer freezes yet? That’ll change your perspective real fast.”
Yeah, things had been bearable—until Dominija had called with an urgent warning about cutting short our time outside. We were going stir-crazy here.
“A speed freeze. Ouais, we had one a couple days ago.” It’d laid waste to our field and almost our livestock. Sol had rushed out to salvage our farm with his light, and even he had nearly gotten frostbite.
“Then you know. The good news: no one’s spreading the plague anymore. Bad news? Because they’re all frozen! And things won’t change until all the Majors are gone but one.” She talked so casually about the deaths of my friends.
