I’m standing in front of an altar. Arched stained-glass windows refract colored beams onto the wooden pews stretched across the room, lighting up dust motes that float in the still air. If it weren’t for the sleeping bags, pillows, and empty Coke cans littered around the church, it’d probably be beautiful.
I realize that the last time I was in a church was for Mom’s funeral. The thought makes my chest constrict. The irony that I might be having my own funeral soon isn’t lost on me. I miss Mom so bad it hurts in a place I didn’t know existed before she died, but I want to live a long and—hopefully—happy life. I don’t want it all to end in this place.
The arguing settles down, and it seems like they’ve come to some sort of decision. One that makes Sporty Spice very angry. She storms out of the church, the double doors smacking open, then closed in her wake. A few other people leave less dramatically, while still others separate into small groups, conversing in low tones and casting glances my way every now and then.
I wonder if I should make a break for it. I start moving slowly down the wide aisle between pews.
“Don’t even think about it.”
I gasp, turning to find Pixie staring at me with a very unimpressed look on her face.
“I wasn’t—”
She raises her eyebrows, and I stop myself from saying anything else. It’s very obvious that I was.
“Do you need food?” she asks.
Like I’d eat their food. “No thanks.”
“It’s safe,” she says, guessing my train of thought. “We wouldn’t, like, poison it or anything.”
Right. Because the people who just beat me to a pulp are above that sort of thing. But anyway, I don’t think I could eat even if I were sure the food wasn’t laced. My stomach is a ball of nerves. I wonder idly if it’s like this with criminals on death row, when they get to eat anything they want for their last meal.
“How about some ice for that head?” she asks.
On cue, my head gives a violent bang from the inside. I decide there’s no possible way she could kill me with an ice pack, so I murmur an assent. I expect her to leave, but she just holds out her hand and an ice pack materializes. Of course. I hesitantly reach out and take it from her.
“Any chance you have some bandages where that came from?” I ask meekly.
She rolls her eyes, but complies. I try not to cry with relief when she hands me a huge roll of clean white bandages and a tube of antiseptic ointment.
“Thank you so much,” I gush.
She doesn’t answer, just turns around, her long flannel shirt flapping as she struts toward a door behind the altar. I sit in a pew and get to work cleaning up my arm. When I’m done, I press the ice pack against my temple and think.
I could use my magic right now, but there are so many people spread out through the church that I couldn’t guarantee to get them all if I caused another earthquake or even the wind thing. It’d be as easy as one person noticing my attempt at escape for me to get killed. I need to wait until the room thins out, or they take me somewhere else. I just hope my magic still works then.
I watch the room, quietly assessing and hoping to come up with a better plan. The ice pack drips cold water down my arm. There isn’t a clock in this place, but the light slanting through the stained-glass windows shifts, changing the shadows across the room. My stomach growls loudly.
Pixie returns and hurls a box of Ritz Crackers at me without pausing her steps. I’m not expecting it and bat the box away from me like it might be a grenade. She looks at me as if I’m challenged and then goes over to stand with a group of men.
When she’s not watching, I crouch down and pick up the box. I’m biting into my third stale cracker when the back doors open, and all the noise sucks out of the room.
Two people stand in the doorway. One of them is a woman in her late forties. She’s approximately the size of a tank and sports eighties-style peroxide-blond feathered bangs, too much makeup, and a leather vest (if she carried a purse, it’d be football hold, even if the purse had straps). The other person is the blond guy with the trucker hat who made the crude advance when Cruz had me in the back of the van.
Sorcerers.
I should be thrilled—this is exactly what I wanted—but as they stride down the aisle like they own the place, my stomach does a flip. I drop the box of crackers.
The rebels pull together at the altar as the sorcerers approach. Tension radiates through the air in palpable waves.
“You got us some humans?” Trucker Hat says.
“One human,” Hawaiian Shirt answers.
“Just one?”
“Take it or leave it, Ace,” Bob Marley answers.
Trucker/Ace/Whatever His Name Is locks eyes with Marley, who responds by sticking his rather large chin up at him. For a minute I’m sure they’re going to come to some sort of testosterone-fueled blows, but then Ace glances at me. He pauses, and then his face lights up with a huge smile. Dread washes over me as he saunters toward me.
“Hey, I remember you,” he drawls.
I shrink back into the pew, as far from him as possible.
“You’re the girl went missing from Cruz last week, huh?”
His twangy voice sends shivers down my spine.
He takes another step closer, but Pixie appears out of nowhere and blocks his path.
“Not so fast,” she says.
He looks her up and down and gives a dismissive shrug. Pig.
“Your part of the deal,” Pixie says. She pokes him in the chest with her bony finger, even though she barely comes up to his shoulders. I decide I like her.
Ace eyes me over her shoulder, barely paying attention to her. My heart beats hard.
“Santa Monica or nothing,” she says. “Safe passage for any rebel. We find a human, we’ll turn ’em over, but no Chieftains on our land.”
“Fine,” Ace says quickly. Pixie is too shocked by his easy agreement to hurl an insult back at him before he passes around her. I scramble to my feet, stumbling backward, but he snatches me by the waist. The grin he gives me makes his green eyes sparkle and bile rise in my throat.
“You’re coming with me, little lady. And this time, you won’t get away.”
16
He lifts me up and hefts me over his shoulder.