Page 62 of All Her Ghosts

Gunshots.

The second SUV lays on its horn, swerving around me and down another aisle. Meeting up with another of its kind, it roars away in the direction of the distant gunfire, unaware of the answering thunder in the empty hollow of my chest.

Death swells in cold eddies from the autumn-stained grass. The sky cracks. Thunderheads boil out of nothing, a gruesome gray and spitting sparks. A freezing wind howls through the aisles, tossing tents and overturning tables, winter roaring on its scream. In the far distance, a horn blows, and I recognize the rumble of the RV that’s carried me from every home I’ve ever known. A man shouts in pain. Guns fire, fire, fire—

The father of my other half isdying.

And the only gods listening areus.

Shucking my hoodie, I wrap it twice around the wheel, for padding. Stomping on the gas, I rip the car in a brutal three-point turn that has Bas slamming into the back door, kicking at the wall, and head in Cain’s direction. Bas’s eyes find mine in the rearview, a strange gold seeping in around the black. No more time to talk—no more need for it; Bas understands. He climbs over the back seats, into the trunk, and braces.

Through the smoke billowing from the jeep’s engine, I spot another DNR vehicle ahead. I push the jeep harder, kicking up dust devils on the thin dirt track. Smashing a fist into the window controls—no time to find the right one—I roll down every window and jam my arm out past the windshield, straight as a lance.

I tailgate them hard, the distance between us dwindling. The SUVsthrow on their horns, flaring brake lights, threatening. A passenger window opens, a body levering out, pistol gripped in a black gloved hand pointed straight at me. I don’t let off the gas. I stare down the barrel, stare down the man, spreading five fingers wide.

Pedal to the floor mat, my front bumper just barely kissing their tow jack, I close my eyes and lunge, blazing forward down the length of my outstretched arm. I strike the driver straight in the spine, grab his passenger around the neck, dig my fingers into the meat of their gasping lights—andshove.

My abandoned body dangles from its seat belt. My arm hits the car door. My head hits my sweater wrapped around the wheel. I watch from outside my body as their lights billow away, caught by the storm. Two threats transformed into windswept garbage, they tumble through the gutters, savaged by the wind and the violence of their passing.

Flinging off the projector, I suck in a fresh breath and back into my meat. Just in time to jerk the wheel, coasting around the first SUV with its passengers slumped empty in their seats, idling off into a ditch. In front of him, the newcomer must think better of having me on his bumper. He cuts his wheel hard, plunging off into a side street filled with sellers.

People scream, scrambling to get out of the way. Folding tables crunch under his massive wheels, porcelain shattering, stuffed animals smearing in the mud. He drives alongside us, separated only by a single row of vendor vehicles, scattered food trucks, and sobbing civilians.

The barest corner of his window rolls down. A long black barrel peeks out.

Bas’s sneakers smash into the back door. The cargo hatch unfolds.A sharp beam of sunlight sears through the storm, crashing onto the roof of our stolen jeep. It burns, golden light blazing so bright I have to squint, dodging screaming pedestrians as best I can. I have no time to turn, to even glance in the mirror, but I don’t need to see what’s happening. I know.

I know it like my own Google history, like a faded, fresh-kissed memory.

I know it like a death goddess, half flesh and half bone, whose trickster daddy stole her a shining golden harvest god.

A warrior.

From the corner of my eye, I swear I see the edge of a massive burning blade. Bas rears back, sunlight slicing from his hands. A spear of light sails across the distance, shattering into the side of the SUV. Bas roars and it sounds like no language I know.

It sounds likehome, home, home.

The SUV flips, stranded on its side. I floor it. Following the sound of gunshots, I reach the auction building at last, cutting so hard around the corner two of our wheels leave the road. Even more beetle-black SUVs block my way, clustered so tightly I almost can’t see my mother’s RV parked sideways and idling, swarming with jackbooted thugs. Before them, fresh ghosts burn in the thin autumn grass, faces fully defined and furious, pounding fists that melt to mist on the RV’s doors. Trying to claw it apart to remain corporeal long enough to get it open. Hitting in waves hard enough to shove the vehicle. They swarm on top of each other, climbing on spines and shoulders. A blind panic whites out my every thought.

Above us, the helicopter dips low. Any second, I expect to hear moregunfire, to see Cain’s face dodge past a window, but the RV sits dark. Silent. A jackboot in the lead holds up a hand, motioning to the parked vehicle. The hive lurches forward in a wave.

No.

I stomp the gas. It’s hard to aim with my engine smoking blacker than the roiling storm, but I don’t need finesse, just force. I cut along the auction building, scraping so close I bash off my side-view mirror. Someone in the hive cries out a warning. Guns turn, pointed at my windshield.

But I’ve been dead for seventeen years. I’m not afraid, not now. I’m air; I’m everywhere. I am endless and inevitable. The sky breaks, thunder bawling. The windshield shatters.

Through the spanning cracks, I smile, baring too many teeth.

I call to Bas, “Brace!”

And slam through the ring of SUVs surrounding the RV, spinning out into the maelstrom of soldiers and spirits. The airbags explode. A thick white cloud coats the inside of the jeep. My head rings and I can’t breathe—but I don’t need to. I toss my body sideways, hide it under the dash for as much cover as I can manage.

Jackboots shout at me to get out of the car, hands raised. Ghosts risen from the newly fallen bodies swarm to join their fellow soldiers battering at the RV’s windows. I can’t move, my stunned body locked behind the wheel, desperately scanning the RV for any flickering sign of life. I strain to hear a voice, a footstep, a heartbeat, my soul biting at its seams until finally—there. A gun barrel glints in the open slit of the RV’s driver’s-side window.

Cain. He’s still fighting. He’s alive—

A jackboot spins, taking aim. He fires, a hole blooming like a sick flower in the door of my mother’s RV—