Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(11)

“On it,” said Christopher. He started moving again, leaving Cora with little choice but to follow or drop the generator on his feet. She followed.

Once the generator was in position, Jack began her final preparations. Slowly at first, then with increasing confidence as she adjusted clamps, checked wires, and finally verified that the generator was properly fueled. It was a sort of poetry, the way she shifted from task to task, the absolute assurance in her gestures. Finally, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to Alexis’s lips.

“You’ll be better in a moment, darling,” she said, not seeming to care who was listening. She stepped back, and leaned down to put a finger on the generator switch. “Those of you who value your retinas, close your eyes.”

Cora did, but not quite fast enough: the electric ghost of the lightning leaping off the generator danced behind her eyelids, haunting her. The sound of the generator’s engine was big enough to fill the world, roaring and rampant.

Eyes still closed, she shouted, “Do generators always work like this?”

“Not just no, but hell no!” Kade shouted back. “Jack, if you break the school, I’m telling my aunt on you!”

“Calm down, you unimaginative, unscientific fool. Everything is going according to plan.” The sound of lightning striking flesh, very close by, punctuated Jack’s declaration, and was followed by the generator powering down, and Jack beginning to laugh.

Cora opened her eyes.

Alexis was sitting up on the autopsy table, delicately peeling electrodes from her temples. Her skin was pinker, with less of a gray undertone. The jumper cables holding the bundled wire in place were still clamped to her ankles and the left side of her collarbone, their sharp metal teeth indenting her flesh. Jack reached up and removed the first of them.

“How are you?” she asked. “Any disorientation? Any discomfort?”

“No,” said Alexis. Her voice was low and sweet and lovely, without a hint of pain. She smiled at Jack, warm and utterly guileless, before turning her attention to the rest of the room. “It’s so nice to meet you, all of you. Jack’s told me so much about you.”

“Alexis has died twice, and second resurrections are rarely without complications,” said Jack, removing the second clamp. “She needs regular infusions of lightning to remain stable, and there wasn’t time to charge her up before we fled. Dr. Bleak gave everything he had to buy us the time to escape. Honoring his sacrifice”—her voice cracked—“was the least we could do.”

“What happened?” Kade asked.

Jack took a deep breath. “I suppose I owe you the truth,” she said. “After all, I’ve come to ask for your help. But I warn you, this isn’t a tale for the faint of heart. It is a story of murder, and betrayal, and sisterly love turned sour.”

“So it’s a Tuesday,” said Sumi. “We can take it.”

Jack nodded. “As you say. It was, as it so often is, a dark and stormy night…”





4?A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT


“DR. BLEAK ALWAYS knew I’d return to the Moors eventually: the only question was whether I’d bring Jill with me.” Jack leaned against Alexis as she spoke, like she was drawing strength from the other girl. “Some of the children who wander through our doors are clearly visitors, you see, while others are citizens who had the dire misfortune to be born into the wrong world. I was of the latter type. My sister’s destiny was less obvious. When I opened the door home and carried her through, my teacher was waiting.”

She closed her eyes, like she was struggling to put the moment into words.

Finally, sounding her age for the first time, she said, “He wept. My teacher, my … I hesitate to use the word ‘master,’ because that’s what the vampire lord of our protectorate likes to be called, but still, my master, wept. He was so happy to see me that he lost his composure. He was so sorry to see my sister that he lost it even more. And then Alexis came out of the windmill, and I…”

She stopped. Alexis settled a hand on her shoulder, looking at the rest of them.

“I was dead when Jack and Jill fled the Moors,” said Alexis, matter-of-factly. “Jill killed me, and Dr. Bleak wasn’t certain the resurrection would take. Second resurrections don’t, always, and my first death was how Jack and I met. She was Dr. Bleak’s assistant for that revival. She did an excellent job.”

“Stop,” said Jack, a faint blush rising in her cheeks.

“No,” said Alexis, and kissed her temple.

The pause had been enough to let Jack regain her composure. She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “I hadn’t dared to even hope that Alexis would be alive when I came home. There were complications, of course—there are always complications—but she was alive, and I was in the Moors, and Jill could never become a vampire, because once a body dies, it forgets how to become immortal. We brought her back that same night, the three of us working together beneath the biggest, most glorious thunderstorm I’d ever seen, and it was paradise, it was everything the Moon could possibly have promised me, and it was mine. It was my happily ever after.”

“‘Ever after’ only ever comes at the end of the story, and your story isn’t over,” said Sumi. “What happened?”

It was such a small question. It shouldn’t have invoked such a large response. Jack laughed, a choked, mirthless sound that matched the tears in her eyes and the tremble in her black-gloved hands. She reached up like she was going to adjust her bowtie, and stopped when her fingers found only skin of her throat and the lacy edges of her peignoir.