Pittacus Lore - The Lost Files - Six's Legacy

“Pretty necklace,” he growls, his eyes flashing with recognition.

If he had any doubt about who I am, it is long gone.

Katarina charges forward but he strikes her hard. She crashes against the TV set, smashing the screen with a bare elbow, and falls to the ground.

He pulls something from his waist-a long, thin blade-and raises it so quickly I don’t even have time to stand. I see only the flash of his blade as he swings it down-straight down, like a railroad spike-into my brain.

My head floods instantly with warmth and light.

This is what death feels like , I think.

But no. The pain doesn’t come.

I look up- how can I see? I think . I’m dead . But I do see, and realize that I’m covered, from head to toe, in hot red blood. The Crooked Mustache Man still has his arm outstretched, his mouth is still frozen in victory, but his skull has been split open, as if by a knife, and his blood is spilling out across my knees.

I hear Katarina wail-it’s such a primal noise that I can’t tell if it’s a cry of grief or a scream of relief-as the man, emptied of blood, turns quickly to dust, collapsing in on himself as an ashy heap.

Before I can take a breath, Katarina is up, shedding her robe and throwing on clothes, grabbing our bags.

“He died,” I say. “I didn’t.”

“Yes,” Katarina replies. She puts on a white blouse, which she instantly ruins with the blood from her elbow, shredded from the TV screen. She throws it out, blots the blood from her elbow with a towel, and puts on another shirt.

I feel like a child, speechless, immobile, covered in blood on the floor.

That was it-the moment I’ve been training for my whole life-and all I managed was a feeble, easily deflected shove before getting tossed aside and stabbed.

“He didn’t know,” I say.

“He didn’t know,” she says.

What he didn’t know is that any harm inflicted on me out of order would instead be inflicted upon my attacker. I was safe from direct attack. I knew it, but I also didn’t really know it. When he stabbed me in the head, I thought I was dead. It took seeing it to believe it.

I reach up and touch my scalp. The flesh there is unbroken, it’s not even damp. . . .

There’s the proof. We are protected by the charm. As long as we stay apart from each other, we can only be killed in the order of our number.

I realize his blood has now turned to dust along with his flesh. I am no longer drenched in it.

“We have to go.” Katarina has shoved my Chest into my arms, her face pressed right up to mine. I realize I’ve spaced out, gone to a place inside my own head, reeling from the shock of what just happened. I can tell from the way she says it that this is the third or fourth time she’s repeated it, though I am only just hearing her.

“ Now ,” she says.

Katarina drags me by the wrist, her bag slung over her shoulder. The hot asphalt of the parking lot burns the soles of my shoeless feet as we rush outside towards the truck. I carry my Chest, which feels heavy in my arms.

I have been preparing for battle my whole life, and now that it’s come all I want is to sleep. My heels drag, my arms are heavy.

“Faster!” says Katarina, pulling me along. The truck’s unlocked. I get into the passenger seat as Katarina tosses our stuff in the bed of the truck and hops into the driver’s seat. No sooner has she closed her door than I see a man racing towards us.

For a moment I think it’s the motel manager, chasing us for fleeing our bill. But then I recognize him as the cowboy from before, the one who gave me the polite nod of his cowboy hat. There’s nothing polite about the way he’s racing towards us now, his fist upraised.

His hand smashes through the glass of the passenger door and I’m sprayed with glass. His fist closes around the fabric of my shirt and I feel myself lifted out of my seat.

Katarina screams.

“Hey!” A voice from outside.

My hand scrambles, looking for something, anything to keep me in my seat. It finds only my unbuckled seat belt, which gives easily as the Mog starts pulling me through the window. I feel Katarina’s hand clutching the back of my shirt.

“I’d think twice ’bout that!” I hear a man’s voice shout, and soon I am released, falling back into the seat.

I am breathless, my head spinning.

Outside the truck, a crowd has formed. Truckers and cowboys, ordinary American men. They’ve encircled the Mog. One of them has a shotgun raised, pointed right at him. With a wry, bitter smile, the Mog lifts his arms in surrender.

“The keys.” Katarina is panicking, near tears. “I left them in the room.”

I don’t think, I just move. I don’t know how long the Mog will be contained by the protective mob, our saviors, but I don’t care: I race back to the room, swipe the keys off the night table, and head back out into the heat of the parking lot.

The Mog is kneeling on the ground now, surrounded by angry men.

“We called the cops, miss,” says one of them. I nod, my eyes teary. I’m too keyed-up even to say thanks. It’s strange and wonderful to consider that none of these men know us but they came to our aid, yet frightening that they don’t understand this Mog’s true power, that if he hadn’t been instructed to keep a low profile he’d have torn the skin clean off each of their bodies by now.

I get in the car and hand Katarina the keys. Moments later, we pull out of the lot.

I turn back for one last glance and lock eyes with the Mog. His eyes brim with reptilian hate.

He winks as we pull away.

Katarina was wrong. I have killed before. Years ago, in Nova Scotia.

It was early winter and Katarina had released me from our studies to go play in our snowy backyard. I took to the yard like a demon, running circles in the snow in my baggy clothes, leaping into snowbanks and aiming snowballs at the sun.

I hated my cumbersome jacket and waterproof pants, so once I was sure Katarina had turned from the window I shed them, stripping down to my jeans and T-shirt. It was below freezing outside, but I’ve always been tough about the cold. I continued to play and race when Clifford, the neighbors’ St. Bernard, came bounding over to play with me.

He was a huge dog and I was small then, even for my age. So I climbed on top of him, clutching the warm fur of his flank. “Giddyup!” I squealed and he took off. I rode him like a pony, running laps around the yard.

Katarina had recently told me more about my history, and about my future. I wasn’t old enough to fully understand, but I knew it meant I was a warrior. This sat well with me, because I had always felt like a hero, a champion. I took this ride with Clifford as another practice run. I imagined chasing faceless enemies around the snow, hunting them down and taking them out.

Clifford had just run me to the edge of the woods when he stopped and growled. I looked up and saw a pale brown winter rabbit darting between the trees. Seconds later, I was on my back, tossed off by Clifford.

I picked myself up and dashed after Clifford into the woods. My imaginary chase had become a very real one, as Clifford ran after the darting rabbit and I followed him.

I was delirious, breathless, happy. Or I was, until the chase ended.

Clifford caught the rabbit in his jaws and reversed course, back to his owners’ yard. I was equally dismayed by the end of the pursuit and by the likely end of the rabbit’s life, and I now stalked after Clifford, attempting to command the rabbit’s release.

“Bad dog,” I said. “Very bad dog.”

He was too content with his achievement to pay me any mind. Back in his yard, he happily nuzzled and nipped the damp fur of the rabbit. It took shoving him forcibly from the rabbit’s body for him to give it up, and even then he snapped at me.