Blaze of Glory Read online

  A dream within a dream. I swear, Oliver showed me a movie with that concept once…

  “HOPE!”

  As if on cue, I hear the aforementioned friend of mine shrieking my alias. Not a half-second later, he’s barreling into the small of my back, his arms tangling around my waist as he takes me down full-tackle into the wet grass.

  “OP, OP—I’m fine! I swear, I’m all right!” I squirm beneath him, wrestling in the mud against his wiry arms and legs. All of them at once. And while we’re even on that front when he’s in his human form, he’s gangly enough to make it seem he has at least two appendages more than I do. “It’s cliche as fuck, but I swear, I can explain—”

  I think…

  “What happened?” Oliver’s demanding, in a voice that sounds like his but is too stern and protective to be him, surely. My brigade mate is kneeling on top of me, peering up over the grass. His head snaps back and forth, probably in an attempt to locate Illiam. I’m not in any way upset that he didn’t hang about “Who is that!?”

  “He’s… sort of this…” I wince, not sure how to word it without terrifying the bejeezus out of him. “This weird mate of mine.”

  Oliver continues to snap his head this way and that for several more seconds, before he stares down at me. The wind whips his mousy-brown hair across his eyes, but even still, I can see the emotions in them as he glares down at me.

  Fear, anger, confusion… disappointment.

  “I vouched for you,” he mumbles, in a tone so broken it threatens to remake my heart in its own image. “Now? You’ve got some serious explaining to do.”

  5 Oliver's Disappointment

  “His name is Illiam.”

  Penny’s razor-edged beauty is normally enough to distract me from any of the dumb decisions she makes—which, to be fair, are few and far between, even as she’s been growing over the past half-year as our new captain.

  But, this time? As she curls up on the kitchen countertop with her bare knees drawn into her chest, in those tiny jean cut-offs that she wears even though winter’s on its way, with messy locks of bleached blonde hair tousled and falling all about her eyes? I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.

  I vouched for her. More than once. Penny would never keep secrets from us, I told them. Even as Alfie shoved at my shoulder, a bit harder than I might’ve liked him to. Even as Duncan sat there and chewed on his thumbnail, his mind tumbling down rabbit holes deeper than I’d ever want to know about.

  I vouched for her.

  And, all along, I was wrong.

  “Or at least, I presume that’s his name. That’s what he tells me.” Penny shifts on the counter of the small campervan kitchenette, wedged beneath the cupboard we’ve learned to duct tape shut when on the road. It saves plates, in the long run.

  “He’s the one who abducted me over Hallowe’en last year,” she continues. She’s avoiding my gaze, staring instead at Tesla, who’s sitting on the television stand across from her flicking a tail in her direction. “Abducted all of us, apparently, everyone who was on that mission that night. He just let everyone else go a lot sooner than me, I suppose.”

  “All of us?” Duncan pipes up from the couch. A frown darkens his entire face, already swathed in shadows in the dim artificial light.

  Penny nods gingerly. “You, Oliver, Alfie, everyone who was with us that night. We never even made it into the building where the gala was taking place. Apparently, he picked us up sometime before that, plunged us into a deep sleep, and dropped us off where and when he wanted to.”

  There’s a moment or two of ominous silence in the van before a familiar titter of laugher shatters the tension, emanating from the front passenger seat of the vehicle. Of course, if anyone were to be incapable of taking a situation like this at all seriously, it would be our newest full member, Rhys Shields.

  “He abducted you while you were in the middle of a job and held you for four days?” he repeats, sounding slightly bewildered. “Blimey. It’s unbelievable what women find sexy these days.”

  Penny scowls, speaking up before either Duncan or Alfie can do so on her behalf. “I’ll have you know, I did not find it ‘sexy’. Nor did I appreciate it. I would much rather have been allowed to finish what we set out to do.”

  “What did you set out do you?” asks Juniper, who’s sitting on the edge of the drop-down bed with me. Like Rhys, she wasn’t with us a year ago. In fact, she isn’t even a member of the brigade, and I don’t think she has any desire to be. Not after seeing the sort of trouble we tend to get ourselves into, I think she’s content remaining here, helping the Anomaly refugees set up camp until they can be re-routed somewhere safe and secure. Away from the government, the Militia of Britain, and everybody else who apparently wants them dead simply for existing.

  Which is probably best for the brigade, too. After the show of force we witnessed yesterday, the insane levels of power we saw her summoning, I’m not entirely sure the others are comfortable around her anymore. And they probably won’t be until we find out how she was able to do that.

  Penny huffs out a heavy sigh. She looks exhausted, but none of us are ready to let up on her yet. Not until she gives us a little more. “We were acting on a tip, a lead we got from a verified and reputable source. One too good to pass up.”

  “Right, right, the Opus Maximus, or some shit? Right?”

  I roll my eyes at Alfie, who’s sprawled shirtless on the couch beside Duncan. So pretty, but so dumb. Penny was absolutely correct in that assertion.

  “The Opus Veritas,” she corrects him. “We were told it was some sort of tome, or tablet, or document, or something containing information about some sort of ancient power the Sovereignty may be trying to harness.”

  Rhys clicks his tongue in his mouth. “Mm, curious. Sounds rather twentieth century Hollywood Eyptian, wouldn’t you say?”

  Penny metaphorically pins him with a look. “Don’t you judge, mate. We’ve seen some shit in our time. Back then, B.LA.Z.E. was a larger, much more active force. We launched offenses on the Sovereignty on a fortnightly, sometimes weekly basis. Being told they had some sort of magic book that might help them access an ancient supernatural power?”

  “In other words, since the sun exploded and gave us all superpowers, our standards have apparently dropped,” drawls Alfie, rolling his dark brown eyes. They’re soft and doe-ey, and betray the fact there might be something softer lingering below his hard, harsh surface. “Like the lady said. Don’t fuckin’ judge it, mate.”

  I can’t help a chuckle, which I do my best to muffle. I’m not into taking sides when it comes to inter-brigade politics. But scientific factual inaccuracies aside, Alfie’s comment about our standards of what could be perceived as feasible have certainly become considerably lower since the Flare. Since ordinary human beings began developing Magickal powers, superhuman abilities, evolving into what a whole new race we now call Anomalies.

  “Anyway, according to this Illiam bloke, none of it’s real,” she continues with an air of exasperation. “It was all just a rouse to draw us into London where we could be apprehended by the Sovereignty’s black ops unit, Branch 9.”

  “I say, they’re getting awfully creative,” Rhys muses aloud.

  Ignoring him, Duncan remains focused on Penny. He’s often all-business when it comes to the business, and we haven’t had a conversation this business-centric in many weeks. Not even given the chaos that recently occurred with assisting the Novanites with their Anomaly refugees.

  “Do ye believe him, lass?”

  Penny stares back at him. She’s beautiful—tired, sweaty, and messy, but beautiful. It’s still not enough to distract me from the disappointment though, from the pain. I vouched for her…

  “No,” she admits after a while. “No, I don’t. I think he’s a pathological liar, in all honesty.”

  “What else did he tell you?” I ask, trying to aid Duncan in forwarding the conversation. It’s getting late, and the refugees in camp are expecting us to
make some sort of announcement about our plan for the interim.

  Alfie scoffs. “Riiight. ‘Cause we gonna take the word of some pith-mythological liar?”

  Penny frowns, turning her eyes to me. I have to admit, every time they do, they threaten to set every nerve in my body on fire. “How many’s he had?”

  “He’s on his fourth, I think,” I reply, motioning to the beer bottles beside her. “It’s from what we were given up in Pocklington.”

  “His tolerance is slipping,” she says curtly, and several of the van’s occupants share a short laugh. Alfie looks like he’s still trying to deduce how one could lie mythologically, but like he may be right on the verge of his Eureka moment. Our very own Einstein, that lad, and we’re all just so darn proud.

  Penny sighs, and Duncan and I immediately recognize the sound as her way of announcing she’s ready to talk seriously once more. “A great deal, but at the same time, not that much,” she says, and I turn my head briefly to watch Alfie’s tipsy brain attempt to do the maths on that one. “Where should I start?”

  “How about at the beginning, a year ago,” I say. I’m taken aback by the sharpness of my tone, but that doesn’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth, just as icily. “Back when you first started lying to us about this bloke.”

  The look she gives me isn’t in any way harsh, but it still wears me down. “I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “He was well convinced you wouldn’t ever lie to us,” slurs Alfie, scratching one thigh through his stonewash jeans. “He don’t know you like I know you, see.”

  I flinch. Both at Alfie’s mockery of my own steadfast belief in someone who was apparently lying to us all along, and at the presumption that I don’t know her as well as he does.

  But, as it often does when it comes to Alfie, my mouth remains shut. There are some wars that just aren’t worth waging.

  “Well, believe it or not, I find his faith in me pretty fucking flattering, thank you very much,” snaps Penny, glaring at the red-haired Anomaly. Alfie glares back, a defiant fire in his eyes. Once again, tension builds within the confines of the small camper van, our home-away-from-home for the past five or so months since our headquarters was raided and destroyed by the Sovereignty.

  The bloody hell’s going on between those two? I can’t help but wonder. Whenever sparks fly between Penny and Alfie, we’ve all learned to run for cover. Apparently, being friends since childhood equips you well for battle against your own brethren. They know each other’s weak spots, and when they’re pissed off at each other, they’re more than happy to exploit them.

  “More than the idea of getting some from a slobbering drunk, anyway,” she finishes with a snort. Alfie returns it with a derisive noise of his own, flicking a bottle cap in her direction.

  “You want me to give you a girl-BJ,” he sneers. My mouth drops open, and I reach across to squeeze Juniper’s hand. It’s a clear signal to my friend that something proverbial is about to hit an equally proverbial fan.

  “Diesel,” Penny says, addressing him by his alias instead of his real name in front of the guest sitting beside me. Just the way she says it would send a normal man with a normal balance of dignity and ego running for the hills.

  But, this, honored folk of all genders, is Alfie Savage. And, for better or for worse, Alfie Savage is no normal man.

  “Do me a favor,” she continues. “Go warm up that tongue of yours with twenty-five rounds of ‘Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’. Then I’ll let you give me that, what the bloody hell did you call it?”

  “Girl-BJ,” says Rhys from the front of the van. Juniper makes a squeaking noise that sounds like an adorable cross between a laugh and a hiccup.

  “Aye right,” mutters Duncan, his usual response to anything that renders him speechless.

  I don’t blame him.

  “Can we?” I press, trying not to let my annoyance crawl into my voice in any way that might be noticeable.

  Penny shakes her head. “I don’t even remember the question.”

  “I don’t think there was one,” I reply as evenly as I can. I’m anxious to get to the bottom of all of this. I’ve spent the last year on edge, waiting at any moment for something to happen to Penny or for her to be taken from us again, and all along…

  “All right.” Penny steadies herself with a breath, as Alfie tries to get his mouth around that tongue twister, and Duncan does his best not to strangle him for it. “Well. He held me in what I can only assume is where he lives. Maybe an old manor house? He told me the Opus Veritas doesn’t exist and that he was the one who lured us there, to the gala, by pretending to be my father.”

  “Do you think he was also the one who pretended to be your dad down in Selsey last spring?” I ask, as my mind does its best to draw string lines between different pieces of evidence. What sort of reason could she even have for not telling us about this?

  Penny shrugs again. It hurts to see her this lost, this unsure. “I have no idea.”

  “But he was the one who lured us to the Sovereignty gala last Hallowe’en?”

  She nods at me. “Yes. Then, he pulled us out. He claimed the Opus didn’t exist, but I later located an item in his home that would serve as a pretty good indicator of the opposite.”

  My eyes widen, but Rhys beats me to the punch. “You saw the Opus Veritas?”

  “I don’t know. I think so? Or something he wanted me to think was it.” The way Penny chews her lip melts my heart, makes me want to forgive her for everything with no further explanation. But, at the same time, we’re getting into the meat of the matter and I want to know more.

  “That was only last year. This year was different.”

  I frown. Different? She was only gone for a split second, if that. The instant she disappeared with Illiam, she returned. I barely even had a chance to blink.

  “Different how, lass?” asks Duncan.

  Penny looks physically pained. “I had… a vision. A nightmare That’s the best way I can really put it, although Illiam called it something else.”

  Duncan leans forward even further, barely even sitting on the couch anymore, as Alfie continues to try and wrap his tongue around the similar-sounding syllables of Penny’s lyrical trap. “What did he call it?”

  Penny glances between me and Duncan, and as she does, it’s nothing but sheer apology that we see in her eyes.

  “A prophecy,” she says. “He called it a prophecy. And I’m sorry, but it wasn’t exactly a good one, either.”

  6 Penny's Explanation

  They all look piiissed.

  I can’t say I blame them. How would I react if I found out Duncan had been lying to me for over a year, or Alfie? The betrayal of a brother can only be compared to an arrow through the heart. I deserve everything I’m getting right now, and I’ll do whatever it takes to regain their trust.

  “I’m sorry,” I find myself mumbling, stumbling over an apology that’s long overdue. I squeeze my legs into my chest, wrapping my arms around them tighter. “I—I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone. I should’ve, I wanted to, I meant to—several times. And I’m a bloody arsehole for not getting around to it. And I know, no excuse I can come up with is going to be enough.”

  They all fall quiet. Even Alfie has stopped muttering to himself, Rhys’ cat now perched upon his bare chest, staring back at me. Through the thin, musty walls of the van, we can hear the sound of the refugees we recently rescued making camp. Afraid, but a step closer to some form of freedom. Freedom being a commodity that isn’t exactly easy to come by in this country, these days.

  To my surprise, Oliver is the first one to speak up.

  “It’s okay, Captain.”

  “Is it?” asks Alfie, his tone playful. His fingers are buried in Tesla’s long fur.

  “Yes,” Oliver affirms quickly, whipping his head around. “At least—I think so. I’m not going to speak for anyone else here. But this is the first time you’ve ever really held anything back like
this from us… just promise you won’t do it again.”

  “I won’t,” I vow, and I mean it. I’m done lying to these lads. “You’re right, mate, we need to be able to trust each other. We’re all we’ve got. We’re family. We need to treat each other like family.”

  Alfie sniggers, scratching Tesla right at the base of her tail. “Scream at each other over dinner and steal each other’s stuff?”

  “Captain,” smirks Rhys. “Ground him.”

  “Don’t give him the attention he so desperately wants,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “It’ll only encourage him to act out more in future.”

  “Fuck you, Cap’n Booty-Bum Jean Shorts Lady Girl.”

  “That’s insanely specific,” I say flatly, fighting a smirk of my own. I drum my fingers against my thigh. I’m still smarting from the vision, the nightmare, the prophecy—whatever I decide to call it. A thorny rose by any other name is still waiting to prick my poxy fingers when I try to handle it.

  “He said it was a ‘prophecy’,” I say complete with air-quotes, doing my best to translate Illiam’s personal brand of crazy into something more tangible. “A warning from ‘the goddess’. I fell asleep and had this bizarre dream where I was at the bottom of some sort of volcano or fissure in the earth.”

  “And you, and you, and you were there,” jokes Rhys, quoting perhaps the oldest movie I’ve ever seen. I don’t bother turning my head to look at him, even as I reply.

  “Actually, Dorothy, your little cat was in my dream. I had a feeling she was trying to get me out of there.”

  Alfie whoops in response, ruffling Tesla’s glorious tortoiseshell mane. “Did you save Cap? Aw, yeah, you saved her arse good, didn’t ya?”

  “Out of the volcano?” asks Oliver, doing his damndest to ignore Alfie’s drunken outbursts.

  I nod.

  “Illiam called it a chasm,” I say. “Or rather, one of the Chasms. Five of them, to be precise. I have no idea where they are or what they mean, if they’re even real.”