Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [37]
I’m definitely in the Shadowland now, because I can hardly see a thing.
“Celia!” I call out tentatively. “Mom? Dad?”
As I stumble through an opaque wall of fog, I gag on the smell of rotting sewage — no, rotting flesh — and my heart flutters with recognition.
Lost Ones.
Less-than-angelic humans stuck in the labyrinth of the Shadowland so long their very souls have rotted into a mass of stink and decay. Monsters tormented by loss and demented with hunger.
Hunger for human flesh.
God, no.
I hear the screams of men being tortured, devoured. Soldiers? The N.O.P.E. guards, leaping after me into the portal and into the cannibalistic maws of Lost Ones? I shudder violently, but though the shrieks go silent, there’s nowhere to run.
Suddenly dozens of decaying arms grab at me from out of the smoke, their slimy flesh slipping around my shoulders, my chest, my throat. I scream, but the sound is muffled among the moaning and frenzy.
I push back at them, wrenching my body in utter terror.
“Don’t try to fight us, idiot,” a low, garbled female voice coos into my ear, full of ill intent. “You can’t win. Don’t you see? We’re already dead.” The others cackle, and the Lost Girl continues. “Don’t you wish you were dead?” She puts a clammy hand on my cheek, and I recoil. I’m glad that I can’t see her rotting face through the haze. “You will be.”
She laughs, and my stomach turns as I now begin to make out a hint of stringy flesh left on her face as it shakes terribly, her cavernous eyes dancing in front of me. “Soon. Very, very soon, you’ll be dead, too, handsome idiot stranger.”
Chapter 38
Wisty
MY FACE IS scrubbed clean, my hair is brushed, glossy, and trailing down my back like a flame, and I’m decked out in a chic green dress that Mrs. Highsmith had lying around. I click along the spotless streets in my too-tight shoes as if I don’t even care that the security cameras from the surrounding mansions — each of which I’m sure comes equipped with a vicious wolf-mutt growling just beyond the gate — are trained on my every move. If it weren’t for the glint in my eye, you’d swear I was New Order Youth all the way.
After weeks on the run covered in blood, grime, and who knows what else, I almost feel like I’m going to a fancy N.O. recital. My old frenemy Byron Swain once told me about those so-called parties that culminate in an elaborate recitation of The One’s successes, with the N.O. elite dressed to the nines and patting one another on the back. As excruciating as that would be, I wish I were going there — instead of where I’m actually headed. …
My showdown with The One, maybe to save the fate of the world, but more likely to die.
I’m muttering Mrs. Highsmith’s advice —“wits, courage, compassion” — like a mantra, and I’m so worked up I almost walk right in the path of a Youth Troop on patrol.
There are two straight lines of stone-faced children, marching stiffly in crisp white uniforms accented with bold red trim. The leaders are just kids — probably younger than I am, but they’ve got the cold, brainwashed look of soldiers of the highest rank. Not one of them would hesitate to bash my head in.
They’ve got a few even younger kids with them, who are being dragged along, sobbing, in chains.
New Order families and couples stroll by, elegant in their fine clothes. They don’t look at the chained kids, or seem to hear their wails.
But I do see the looks on those kids’ faces, the hopelessness and the pain. I do hear their screaming. I walk past the banner-lined street that will take me to the palace and The One’s headquarters. Without even meaning to, I find myself approaching the troop instead. Though it’s the last thing in the world I want to do, I can’t not help.
Chapter 39
Wisty
I HAVE THE sudden, eerie feeling that something is horribly wrong as I’m walking toward the troop. I can almost feel hands pressing