When the Raven Calls

Chapter 16

IT WAS AN ALL-TOO FAMILIAR scene, the pounding feet and crackling flames, and the acrid scent of smoke curling up onto the moonlit horizon. I didn't bother fighting against the wild fear beating beneath my ribs, letting it carry me where it willed.

"Sam!" Macey called from behind me. I turned, seeing the way unshed tears glimmered in her eyes. "He's gone. You know he's gone. Don't leave me, too."

I heard my best friend's plea, and some part of me awakened, urging me to turn back, to run as fast as I could away from the deadly siren song of the roaring fire. And yet...

He's gone.

The words just kept hammering in my head, chipping away at the void inside myself, the numb disbelief. He can't be...

Unconsciously, my feet kept me moving forward, running towards where my worst nightmares that had come out to play. Please don't let this be my fault, I thought, sheer desperation overpowering the knowledge that it was.

It wasn't until I had turned the corner and seen the blue house--my house--going up in flames that her words sank in. Don't leave me, too, echoed in my head, but I was close enough to feel the fire's heat, and I couldn't turn back, not now.

I reached out with my senses, searching for the hum that could bring my world back to life, and found... nothing.

Not even in the sense that Thomas wasn't there, or wasn't alive or something, but in the totally empty, nothing-alive-for miles way. There wasn't so much as a blade of grass with its tiny vibration, as if I had entered a void or maybe a black hole.

"Thrilling, isn't it?" someone asked. I turned, desperately searching, my eyes barely able to make out anything after staring into the blazing flames.

"I didn't know what would happen when I found it, of course. I had thought that maybe I could sell it for a few million umlids, but it was so much more..."

I turned again, and this time I could just barely pick out a figure on the other side of the flames. I squinted, sure my eyes must be tricking me, but sure enough, Warren Yaxley was walking leisurely through the flames, not bothered in the slightest by the roaring heat, crackling flames, or, you know, the fact that he was being burnt alive.

"After all, who wouldn't want a 5,000 year old artifact that belonged to the Goddess herself?" he chuckled faintly. "Well, I suppose I didn't at first, but after realizing it's power, I couldn't just give it up."

"And what is its power?" I called, desperately trying to buy time.

"You haven't figured it out? Of course not," he said, still smiling, his head cocked. "She truly hasn't told you, has she? What is, what is to come... Oh, this will be most fun."

"What the hell are you talking about? And what are you doing to my powers?" I asked, tired and confused.

"Ah, that's the irony of it all. Ju'mat's ring, the final trap, final fail-safe for if any of her children turned against her... unlimited power, yes, but it's also deadly to her little birds. And your power... well, that's the funniest part of it all. The very thing that should help you survive what is to come is slowly killing you... Or was that the plan all along?" he asked, tilting his head. I stared at him, a growing realization in my mind.

"You're mad," I whispered, my eyes wide. "That's what it does to Untainteds--it drives them insane if they touch it."

"I'm not crazy!" he roared, clawing at his face, his eyes unfocused. "They said so, too. They said I was insane, all those years ago... But I wasn't. I'm not. I wasn't then, I wasn't when I ripped their heads off, and I'm not now."

He was smiling again, and a different sort of fear tore through me.

"I can just see it now. I can see how very tiny I am, how small you are... or were, I supposed. Now it seems that you grow bigger and bigger every day."

I was torn between putting him out of his misery once and for all and rushing past him. Maybe if I ran fast enough, I could make it past the flames without serious injury. All I had to do was look... I had to know if he was alive.

"Does she know?" he asked, still looking at me, "Does she know that she's been thrown in a cage, her wings cut off? That she is to fight to the death?"

"If you want a fight, you'll get one, but I promise you, you're the only one who's going to die," I growled, crouching slightly.

He laughed again, and my skin crawled. "Oh, she thinks it's me she's come to fight... No, no, no. Death awaits us both, but I'm afraid you've got more screams to sing before he'll take you. For me, tonight's the end though... the end of four years of suffering."

He smiled, a blissful moment showing on his face, before he raised a rifle to his head and pulled the trigger.

A deafening boom sounded, and I fliched back in shock, listening as his blood sizzled in the flames. A moment later, though, I was pushing it aside, sprinting forward, searching desperately for Thomas. A heart-stopping second passed before I felt him, and I rushed forwards, ignoring pain as I tried to reach him.

"Thomas!" I screamed, choking on smoke. He didn't respond, but I glimpsed a figure lying on the floor just a little ways away. I rushed over, rolling his body over and letting out a relieved sigh when I saw his shallow breaths. I did my best to drag him across the room, turning away as I heard a crash from across the room, but relaxed I realized it was just Macey.

"Thomas!" she gasped, looking at him in awe.

"Come on, we have to get him out of here," I said, starting to move him again. She helped, and together we managed to get out of the building just as the roof gave way and the sky turned into a dome of sparks.

I GASPED, bolting upright and knowing two things that were very different than my normal nightmare.

First, that wasn't usually how it ended. The fire, Warren Yaxley, and running were all true, but... usually I got there just in time to see Thomas die, and then battle Yaxley, followed by waking up when I died, as well. Usually the last thing I heard before I woke was Ju'mat, saying that if I didn't change soon, it would all come to pass. This was... this was all so different than usual, although it felt more real than usual, too.

The second thing, however, was much more notable and urgent.

My bedroom was on fire.