K. McEntire - Lightbringer

“Wendy, honey—” Taken aback by her fury, her father dropped his arms and half-rose from the edge of her bed, confusion written all over his face. “Come on, kiddo. Language.”

“Don’t ‘Wendy-honey’ me, Dad!” Wendy knew her voice was rising shrilly, tottering on the edge of hysterical anger, but she hardly cared. “Look, I’m not a baby! There are all kinds of people selling at school and I could get high anytime I want, but I have this whole ‘my-body-is-a-temple’ thing and I’d really rather not. Hell, Dad, I don’t even drink!” Wendy slammed her Algebra book closed.

“Keep your voice down! The twins are asleep!”

From beneath the bed Jabber began to growl, low and long. Wendy dropped her tone to an angry hiss, unconsciously mimicking the cat. “Whatever. I’m not pulling A’s anymore, sure, but French sucks and English is boring and Algebra is hard, but since B’s were good enough for Mom you really shouldn’t give a shit!”

Horrified, Wendy’s jaw clicked shut and she pressed her hands across her mouth as if she could choke the words back, shame coloring her cheeks scarlet.

“You’re right,” her father said, using the edge of the desk to rise. His shoulders drooped and he shuffled his feet, bunny slippers rubbing the carpet with a whispery sigh.

“D-dad,” stammered Wendy, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You did.” He fumbled at his hips for a moment before realizing his robe was on the mend pile and there were no pockets to shove his hands into. “But that’s okay. I believe you, and I’m sorry I brought it up. You finish up your homework and get to bed.”

“Dad—”

“Hush. Come here.” Her father drew her close and gave her a tight hug. Wendy could smell the traces of Irish Spring on his skin and the fainter smell of ammonia and bleach. He’d been to the hospital again tonight. He practically lived there when he was home.

“I don’t do drugs, Dad.” Wendy stepped back, slid into her desk chair. Her fury abated, she felt cold and tired and very, very sad. She shrugged, uncomfortable but feeling a need to say it once while she had her dad on the defensive, so that they would never need to have this sort of conversation again. “And, just in case you were wondering, I know what I look like, but I don’t sleep around either. Really.”

“Good to know, kiddo.” He ruffled her hair and walked to the door. “Sweet dreams.”

“Night, Dad.”

He turned the knob, then paused. “Oh, Wendy? I’ve got a big contract coming up at the end of this week. I’ll be gone eight, maybe nine days.”

“Okay.” Her mousy-looking father was a corporate efficiency consultant—a destroyer of jobs and dreams all in the name of profit—and his efficiency audits often had him on the road for weeks at a time. When he was gone, Wendy was in charge. “I have it all under control.”

“Never doubted it for a moment.” They paused, both aware of the irony of his statement, and then he slipped back into the hallway without another word.

Weary now, and wanting nothing more than to simply sink into her bed and sleep for a year, Wendy rifled through her Algebra text until she found the assignment again. A tear plopped onto the page, magnifying a variable, and Wendy wiped it away. Four hours until school, ten more polynomials, and an outline for her English Lit report.

“I can do this,” she whispered, rubbing the heel of her palm against her eye as Jabber slunk through the desk to twine about her ankles. “I have it all under control.”

Due to Lily’s injuries, getting back to Elle’s was harder than usual, but Piotr was unwilling to walk away from their encounter without spreading word of the monstrous Lightbringer to the other Riders. The Lost were asleep when they arrived, huddled together under sleeping bags and stretched out atop beanbags. Specs, finger tucked most of the way through a Lord of the Rings omnibus, stirred when Piotr took off his glasses, but did not wake.

“You birds are all wet,” Elle said as Piotr rejoined the ladies downstairs. “You’re telling me some mook with a light show bumped off two Walkers with no problems whatsoever?” Agitated, she ran hands through her hair, mussing her fingerpicked curls every which way. “That’s crazy!”

“It happened,” Piotr said doggedly. “We would not lie to you, Elle.”

“Yeah-yeah, I know you wouldn’t beat your gums ’bout nothin’ strong enough to take a pair of Walkers for a ride.” Elle sighed. “Talk about your urban legends coming to life, though. I always reckoned that the stories of a ghost-killer were just a bunch of bull.”

“The whispers among us sometimes tell tales true as well as false,” Lily agreed, settling to the ground and carefully crossing her legs under her. Dora had been awake when they’d arrived; thanks to her, Lily’s wounds were healed, but she would need Elle to help scavenge new clothing for her, or Lily would need to generate enough spare essence to repair her own. “It was some sort of creature.” Fastidiously, Lily picked at the mud dried on a braid, scraping the dirt off and dropping it to the floor.

“Before it started shredding Walkers like paper, Lily called it the Lightbringer,” Piotr said, moving carefully so the last stairs wouldn’t creak under his weight and possibly wake the assembled Lost upstairs. “It’s an apt name.”

“Stop mixing your mud in with my dust,” Elle grumbled to Lily, striding over to a nearby cabinet and retrieving a paper sack. She dropped it in Lily’s lap then paused by a nearby window. Scowling, she peered outside. “Pick up the muck and chuck it. This joint ain’t James’ pigsty.”

“He must be told,” said Piotr, flopping to the ground beside Lily. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he groaned. “James and the rest of them. But I’ll be damned if I’m going all the way to Half Moon Bay just to spread the word.”

“Pipe down, flyboy.” Turning away from the window, Elle leaned against the wall and tipped her head back. “It sounds like maybe we might have a situation on our hands. I’ll send a runner out to James’ at dawn.” She paused. “Though I still ain’t clear on why dusting two Walkers ain’t cause to crack out the butts ’n beers.” Elle pressed her fingers to her lips and sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a ciggy right now.”

“Poison to the mind and body,” Lily stated. “A brave needs not—”

Elle pushed off from the wall, hands fisted. “Oh yeah, Pocahontas? You wanna talk about poisonin’ a good thing, then?”

“Hey, hey!” Piotr moved to stand between them, holding his arms out, fingers spread. “Ladies, ladies, relax. This isn’t the time for us to be bickering.”

Disgusted, Elle slapped his hand away. “Shoulda known you’d take her side, you piker.” Scowling, she stormed over to the window again and planted hands on either side of the frame, glaring out into the murky fog.

“Elle—”

“These debates do nothing for us.” Within moments Lily was on her feet and at the door. Hand on the knob, she surveyed the cluttered room imperiously. “My chance to retrieve Dunn is gone now, thanks to the Lightbringer. It ate the ones who took my Lost, leaving me no beast to track. If you will give me no succor, Elle, then I’ll hunt blind.”

Elle sagged against the window at the mention of the missing child. Piotr felt for her, he really did. Things were tangled between the three of them, words left unspoken for years now, and if this crisis didn’t involve the Lost, she might not have even let them through the door. Elle might hate Piotr, but she outright loathed Lily.

“No, keep looking,” Elle finally said, words pitched low and slow. “I’ll send out scouts during daylight hours and keep a watch myself at night.” She straightened and squared her shoulders, settling hands on her hips and raising her chin defiantly. “But when this thing is over we’ve got a conversation coming, you understand me, Pocahontas?”