Home > Year of the Chameleon, Book 2(4)

Year of the Chameleon, Book 2(4)
Author: Shannon Mayer

Something had changed in those moments before we left the House of Wonder. It was as if the danger we were in had ramped up our abilities and our connection to one another. More than ever, I could feel my friends, their emotions, and I suspected I could find them if we weren’t together.

Maybe the same was true for us and Wild?

I closed my eyes and focused on her, to see if I could pick up a direction maybe, but there was nothing but static rolling back to me. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Nothing but the many, many dead of New York City clamoring for my attention.

Outside the window of the cab, they floated here and there, most not even realizing they were dead. Men, women, children from all races and all walks of life. Worse were the ones who saw me and understood I could see them.

If I focused on them individually, I could see how they had died. Plague. Lynching. Arrow. Knife. Trampled. Smallpox. There were no ghosts from people who’d died of old age, not here in the heart of the city. Not here where death ruled. There were so many, I couldn’t even begin to calculate the numbers. Percentages were off the charts.

“You sure? Kind of a mess out there,” the cabbie said, bringing my attention back to him. “Lots of cops sniffing around. Kids like you could get in trouble just for being there.”

“How much farther?” I asked, ignoring his suggestion.

“Oh, another thirty minutes at least, depending on traffic,” he said.

I turned back to the window, a small dead child waving brightly to me despite the grievous wounds to his face—open sores from smallpox, no doubt.

There was no way our group was going to discuss anything in front of this cabbie, and my brain was on fire as I considered all the possibilities. As Wild being taken settled into a series of numbers and percentages.

The Shadowkiller had never left a survivor before.

Her chances against a person with his power and experience were zero. Zero. But he’d wanted her for something, so maybe we had time to find her.

My jaw tightened along with my throat. I couldn’t think like that. I just had to believe in her.

Now her only hope was that we could find whatever it was that this key was attached to, and that it would save her.

So, first the item, and then we would work to find Wild. That was the plan as I saw it.

A hand touched my shoulder, and Ethan spoke quietly into my ear. “I’ve put a spell on the cabbie. He can’t hear anything.”

I spun around in my seat and stared at the faces of my friends. Ethan was almost as pale as Orin and Gregory. Rory’s sun-bronzed skin stood out amongst the four of them.

“Why are we not looking for Wild?” Ethan growled. “She’s in danger, and we’re driving around headed to the House of Shade—”

“The Shadowkiller just walked away with her,” Orin pointed out. “We aren’t strong enough to stop him, not even with others helping us. We have to be smarter than him. That’s the only way we are going to save her. The House of Shade is where Tommy told us we’d needed to go, and he would know. That key she dropped, it’s a start.”

I nodded my agreement. “He’s right. We have to figure out how to help her, not just rush in and get ourselves or her killed. That won’t do anyone any good.”

“Whatever this key unlocks,” Rory pointed at the key I still held, “it has the possibility to save Wild. Tommy believed it. I believe it.”

Ethan snorted. “Tommy’s dead, right? So obviously it’s not the godsend you think it is. And if it is, why didn’t he use it to save himself?”

I blinked and Tommy appeared, perched on the center console between me and the cab driver. The cabbie shivered. “Damn, got cold in here all of a sudden. Turn up the heat, would you?”

I did as he asked but spoke to Tommy. “Is that true? What Ethan said?”

“I never found what the key fit,” Tommy said. “I was looking for something when I was called to the House of Wonder. I remember that much. But I always thought that the key went into something in the House of Shade.”

“The House of Wonder. Where you died,” I said.

The others were looking at me, waiting. I relayed what Tommy had said about not being able to find the lock that went with the key.

“Does he know what it even is?” Rory asked. “A box? A door? Something else?”

I looked to Tommy, who frowned and shook his head.

“I think my mother told me the key would lead me to something that would protect me if I had it on me, something that would help my dad?” He shook his head. “That’s all I remember. No, wait! She said she left it in the House of Shade when she ran from her brother. He was chasing her. She went back and got it later so she could give it to me.”

I frowned and once more relayed the info, knowing that it was scattered as was so often the case with a ghost.

Orin spoke slowly. “There are stories about legendary weapons. It’s possible it could be one of them. Flails. Katana blades. Spears.”

Gregory was already shaking his head. “I doubt it. All those legendary weapons are hoarded by the houses that made them. And despite the House of Shade’s proficiency in wielding weapons, they don’t tend to make them. They aren’t much into creating things, just killing.”

Rory gripped the back of the cabbie’s seat. “Okay, so let’s break it down. Something that could keep Tommy or Wild safe. What the hell could it be if not a weapon?”

“A spell?” Ethan offered.

“But a Shade wouldn’t have access to a spell like that,” Gregory pointed out. “So your theory is shit. Rather like how you treat your friends.”

I closed my eyes. Here we go again. Gregory would never trust Ethan. And vice versa. The bad blood between the two houses was too deep, too full of history.

Ethan stiffened and then leveled a glare at Gregory. “You don’t even have a clue what my life is, what I face daily. What I’ve survived.”

Gregory shook his head as he leaned over Orin so he was encroaching on Ethan’s space. “Oh yeah, I feel terribly for the poor baby born with a golden spoon up his—”

I snapped my fingers between them. “Stop. Our chances of bringing Wild back safely are slim enough. Fighting amongst ourselves is only going to make things worse.”

They looked at me like I’d sprouted another head. “What?”

“What are her chances, Wally?” Orin asked. “Against the Shadowkiller.”

Did I tell them that she was as good as dead before the night was done if we didn’t find her? I shook my head slowly. “No. I just . . . the odds are bad.” I stumbled over my words, my voice not lowering into the Walter Cronkite mimic that had gotten me my nickname. “Really bad, okay? I don’t even want to say it out loud.”

Zero wasn’t a chance.

Silence reigned over the small interior for the remainder of the ride. I didn’t have to tell them, they knew.

We all knew.

I could feel the fear rolling off them, as close to them as I was. Not fear for themselves, but for Wild. She was friend to Orin and Gregory. Family to me and Pete. And to the other two? Straight up love. I blinked and looked from Ethan to Rory.

They both loved her. I glared at Rory because I’d felt what had happened just before the attack. He’d broken Wild’s heart somehow.

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