Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(39)

“Not for long, little spare,” growled a voice.

Jack didn’t turn. Kade and Sumi did. There, behind them in the entryway, loomed a tall, black-haired man in a red-lined velvet cloak. His shirt and teeth were almost blinding in their brightness. He smiled, showing the wicked points of those same teeth, and he lunged for Kade, hissing.

Sumi’s baling hook caught him in the throat before he could reach the boy. “Naughty vampire,” she said, hauling backward, piercing his trachea. “It’s not nice to bite people you don’t know. It sends the wrong message.”

Kade yelped and scrambled backward, away from the Master’s grasping hands. He stumbled over a chunk of broken masonry. Stooping, he grabbed it and slung it as hard as he could at the Master’s face, hitting him squarely in the mouth. The Master howled. Sumi hauled on her baling hook again, keeping him from recovering his balance, while Kade grabbed more pieces of masonry and flung them, one after the other, like he thought he could win a prize if he hit the bullseye enough times. Cora rolled the largest chunks of stone she could find toward him, positioning them perfectly for his hand.

“This is fun,” Sumi chirped. “I could do this all day.”

“Father!” shrieked Jill, and ran toward the struggling vampire.

Jack stomped on the edge of her nightgown, jerking her to a sudden stop. Jill hissed and whirled around, reaching for her sister as the thunder rolled. Jack’s body was stronger and faster, and Jill nearly had her hands around her sister’s throat when Christopher’s skeletons came boiling over the walls and swarmed the pair, grabbing only for Jill, dragging her back without dragging her away.

In the noise and chaos, it was understandable that the small, simple sound of Jack’s glasses snapping in two went overlooked. She grabbed Jill’s hand, tangling it in her carefully positioned cravat, until they were solidly tied together.

“I did love you,” she whispered. “Please believe that much, if you can.”

Then she thrust her free hand into the air, the broken arms of her glasses jutting from between her fingers, a makeshift lightning rod at the center of a storm. The lightning lashed down, a slash of bleeding white against the darkness, pouring itself into the metal, filling it from end to end with burning heat. The force of the blast scattered the skeletons, sending their individual bones flying in all directions. Jill howled. Jack screamed. And somewhere in the middle of that terrible, unbearable sound, the tones traded places. Jack started to lower her hand. Jill grabbed her elbow, forcing it back toward the sky.

No. That wasn’t what happened. Jill, now dressed in Jack’s clothing, now wearing her own body, tried to lower her hand, and Jack, now dressed in Jill’s lacy gown, finally back in her own skin, forced her to keep it up, until the lightning died, until the two of them stood, shaken and smoking and alone.

Jill shrieked and dropped the molten remains of Jack’s glasses, cradling her wounded hand to her chest. The metal had burned through the leather of Jack’s glove. “It isn’t fair,” she whimpered. “You get everything and it isn’t fair and I’ll beat you, I swear I’ll beat you, I swear I’ll win next time, I swear—”

“You’ll never give up,” said Jack softly. She pulled her hand out of the loop formed by her own cravat and started pushing her sister inexorably toward the wall, using her own superior strength—the strength born from a lifetime of hard labor—to overcome Jill’s vague attempts to struggle. “You’ll keep coming, and coming, and coming, and hurting the people I love.”

“Yes,” spat Jill. “Until I win.”

“The Moors turned us both into monsters,” said Jack. The resignation in her tone was a roll of thunder, heavy and unforgiving. “But it did a better job with me.”

Then she shoved Jill over the edge.





PART IV


A BETTER MONSTER





15?A HEART OF WIRE AND GLASS


JILL FELL WITHOUT a sound, her hair still smoking from the lightning, a wide-eyed, puzzled expression on her face, like this couldn’t possibly be happening, not here, not to her; she was the heroine of the piece, and she was meant to walk away.

The Master finally ripped himself free of Sumi’s baling hook. Before she could snare him again, he lunged, grabbing Jack by the shoulders, whipping her around to face him. The wound in his throat was already healing.

“What have you done?!” he demanded, shaking her. “You little—”

“Dr. Bleak is dead,” said Jack. “Until I resurrect him—if you’ve left me enough to work with—I am your opposition and your equal. Unhand me, unless you wish the judgment of the Moors to be upon you.”

Her voice was eerily calm for someone who’d just shoved her own sister from the castle wall.

The Master stared at her. Then, slowly, he released her, stepping back. “You killed my daughter,” he said. “I will not forget this.”

“She could have lived a long, long time if you hadn’t insisted on finding a way to turn her into what you wanted her to be,” said Jack. “She loved you so much. She would have done anything to please you.”

“And you killed her.”

“Yes. I’ll live with that for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be. Where is Dr. Bleak’s head, please?” Jack tilted her head, looking at him with polite anticipation. “This is an excellent storm. I’d like to take advantage of it.”