Growing up in New Salem means you’ve got trust issues from the moment your mom even decides to give birth to you, because some days you’re going to be left wondering why she chose to have you in that city and literally not anywhere else on the planet—or what’s left of it, anyway. But other days, ones just like this one, when the sun is hot against my shoulders and I’m carrying around several pounds of annoying Angel meat, that I’m kinda glad I was. It’s not every day I get to watch a horde of Fallen Angels blot out the sun, and it’s not everyday that I’m on my hands and knees in the middle of the desert, arguing with a cat whilst I smear my blood all over bits of hot stone.

  If you’re wondering if I managed to pull off a miracle, you’re asking the wrong person. I don’t fuck up under pressure. I’ve nearly died enough times to lose count and still look better than the other guy I left for dead dozens of times over. But with a cat that keeps getting spooked and a baby that keeps shrieking and grabbing my shirt and my skin and loose strands of my hair because he’s also spooked, it’s pretty hard not to fuck up. And I did.

  I fucked up, just when I was about to finish the Summoning sigil, Mortimer freaked and vaulted into the air the moment a Fallen Angel, scrawny, naked, its skin pale and teeth long and ribs protruding from its didended belly, swooped right over out heads. It meant Mortimer and the Fallen Angel scattered the stones and threw sand over the blood. For a moment, on my knees, one hand on the ground and the other knuckling saliva dripping off my chin, I couldn’t really believe it. Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head and looked at Mortimer. I swallow, lick my lips. The baby is thumping his tiny fists against my chest in wild arcs, but I barely focus on him—I care about the cat.

  I stand, and my shadow spreads over Mortimer. He cowers and backs away. He starts speaking as shadows dart overhead, tossing dust and pebbles into the air, sniping against my calves, my thighs, flicking hard against my cheeks. But I stare at the cat, at the sigil that’s now ruined, and slide the gun out from its holster and click the safety.

  “Y-you’re not gonna shoot me, not right now, kid!” he says, panic hitching his voice.

  I take the baby out of the sling, holding it with one hand, and say, “Take the fucking thing and vanish. I don’t want to see you, or hear you, or even think about you for the next ten hours—I’m gonna count ‘em and I’m gonna make sure you don’t break it, because I swear if you do, you and I are gonna have a hell of a lot of problems.”

  Mortimer stares at the kid. The heartbeat that a Fallen Angel gets close to it, I snatch him back to my chest, duck, pause, breathe, aim and fire a shot that blows through a wing and sends feathers and sinew spiralling through the air. A deathly loud shriek of a bellow later, and I’m ducking again, running like hell with nowhere in mind, the cat at my feet and the Fallen Angels a dark shadow chasing me through the desert. I stumble and run and sprint on, my breaths hot in my throat and my heartbeat choppy inside of my chest and gods-fucking-dammit, I swear this is the last time I ever go out of my way to help a crew of magical lesbians kidnap an Elf. This isn’t even the first time it’s happened, and I should know better, but by the time I’m tearing my shoes up running over serrated rocks, through thorn bushes and across hot sand, it doesn’t matter—it does not matter. I’ve got a plan, and that sucks.

  Well, it sucks for the baby Angel and the magical cat, but not for me—no sir, not one bit.

  “Hey,” I say through heavy panting. Mortimer looks up at me. “Take the baby. Vanish.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You better figure out a way to fucking do it or you’re dead too!”

  I don’t give him any time to blink. I stop, sneakers skidding on the dirt, crouch, and put the baby on a patch of dried out dirt. Mortimer startles, looking at the kid, then at me. “What’s your bright idea with this?!”

  “Easy,” I say, throat dry, ears ringing, heartbeat raging. “I run away, and you deal with it.”

  “What!”

  “See you around, kitty cat!”

  Maybe it’s the panic, but people—cats, too, seemingly—do things they think they can’t do when they’ve got no other option. It’s how my mom trained me to think on my feet, because you can hesitate all you like and tell yourself you can’t perform this spell, you can’t draw this sigil, you can’t gut a man wide open in front of his nearest and dearest, but at the end of the day, it’s you versus the thing that’s trying to kill you, and you better make sure you come out the other side the winner, because people stopped playing nice when the US got turned into a boil of magic protruding out the side of the planet. It takes Mortimer all of two seconds before a Fallen Angel darts for him, and then he lunges at the baby—he’s gone in a wisp of white smoke, the baby vanishing right alongside him, too.

  And finally, it’s just me, the Barrens, a handful of bullets, and a ravenous pack of Fallen Angels.

  For a good several seconds, they shriek and beat their wings in flustered circles in the sky above me. I step back and swallow, breathing from my mouth, my grip still so tight around the gun my fingers ache. They’re not doing anything. They keep flinging themselves at one another, claws raking across chests and gouging open pale grey skin, spitting blood onto the ground that sizzles and spits and corrodes stone. I keep backing up, all the way to the main road again, eyes still on the horde—then I start walking, because they weren’t after me, not in the slightest.

  And thank the Gods, because I’ve just about had my fair share of centaurshit for one month, so—

  Claws burrow into my upper right arm, slamming into me with all the force of a semi-truck barreling down the highway. I scream as pain rockets through my shoulder and fills my head, then I’m in the air, feet kicking wildly as a Fallen Angel drags me higher and higher and fuck, Gods—I hate heights! I hate them so much my stomach turns and twists, and I make the rash decision to aim the gun and fire a bullet through the fucking thing’s jaw. Not once, not twice—four times, turning his head into meat that showers me in blood that burns against my skin and makes me grit my teeth as I try to focus. His wings beat once, twice, then his body goes limp, and we’re in free fall. The ground rushes toward me. Heart in my mouth. Wind screaming in my ears. Eyes wide, I brace myself, crossing my arms over my face like that’s gonna fucking help, but I’m desperate, fast, a bullet hurting toward the asphalt.

  A Fallen Angel does me a favor and slams so hard into my ribs I feel something give. The wind is knocked out of me. I choke on my own tongue, thrown through the air even faster. Another slams into me, keeping me in the air, blood from my shoulder trailing after me. I fire wildly. Miss. Click. I curse loudly, the gun now partially useless. All I can do now is grab an Angel when it gets close, digging my fingers into the side of its face, my thumb in its eye socket as I spin, flinging myself onto its back. I get the crux of my elbow underneath its jaw, crank its neck hard, and don’t stop until it starts shrieking and tearing at my forearms, wild and raging and choking out of air.

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  For a moment, I think I might pull this off. I think this damned thing is gonna stop flailing and pass out. Instead, he throws us right onto the Earth, head first—killing itself instantly when its skull smashes open and vomits black-sludge acting as a brain. It’s a split second when I realize what’s happening, a fraction of a moment when all I can do is stare at the asphalt just an inch from my nose. Then all I can do is try not to die as I lie on the painfully hot asphalt, staring up at the sky, blood in my mouth as the world spins underneath me. I landed on my neck. Maybe. Or my back. Can’t really think, or remember. I blink slowly, groggily, aching all over as the sun bakes my skin and my wounds. I’m still holding the gun. Still trying my damndest to stay awake. Breathing is painful. Sounds like whistling coming out of my mouth. Broken rib, maybe a punctured lung—just like mom used to make ‘em. I choke on a goblet of blood, try to spit it—end up swallowing. I vomit blood and dry food, gasping for air.

  The horde lands around me, buzzards hunching over dying prey, darkening the sky with their scrawny bodies and darkened skin, their pulled, garish faces and hollow eyes. All of them have chains around their throats, all of them have Runes burned into the flesh of their skin in odd patterns. I blink slowly, then roll—I roll and force my body to listen, goddammit, until I’m on my face, my hands and knees, wheezing and hurting and shutting my eyes. They watch, and there’s a reason they do—they feed off flesh and magic, they feed off emotion and pain. They’re like Curses, probably in the same species—except instead of breeding inside of you and consuming you from the inside out, these guys let their saliva gather inside their mouths, they let their claws lengthen and their eyes darken and their throats echo with the the sounds of decades old starvation. But no. Not this time around.

  I get to a knee, blood running down my cheek, slick and wet on the side of my neck. I look up, one eye shut because of the scarlet flowing from a cut along my forehead. On your feet, Summers. I get there. Fall again. They get closer, ravenous, wanting—I stand up, holding the gun in both my hands, panting hard and slow.

  I take one, long, deep breath, filling my lungs until it hurts—and then I slowly exhale.

  “You…” I cough blood. Spit. Smile at them as it shines on my teeth. “That’s all?”

  I stumble forward, they keep watching—and then I lunge for the closest one, and do just about the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done, and sink my teeth into its throat so hard, so suddenly, I come away with strips of flesh and meat that turn my mouth into a raging, agonizing fire. I shove off the thing and it collapses into a pile of smoldering limbs. I hack up a lung spitting the gore out of my mouth, and by the time I’m done vomiting and shaking like a dog that’s just been kicked in the gut, my head is light, my arms feel like led, and…I blink, try to wipe my eyes along my forearm, and only end up smearing blood all over my face. I shake my head, then stand up.

  But suddenly, the Fallen Angels aren’t here anymore—they’re on the asphalt, and not just dead, but in piles of liquefied Monster limbs and innards that smolder on the blacktop, like the sun’s got a problem with them and he’s trying his best to make sure to send pillars of black smoke dancing into the sky. I look around, turning slowly, then look at my hands. I don’t remember doing that. Weird. Really, really weird. But hey, maybe the Gods just, you know, gave a girl a break. I think I’ll sit down for a while. Yep, right here on the asphalt. Maybe lie down, too, next to the one whose throat I ripped out of his body. Just some quick shut eye, just enough to feel better.

  A shadow appears over me, tall and long, and suddenly the air is cooler, the sun not so hot, and when it crouches over my, a thrill of chillingly cold air floods my lungs, startling me back to life, because when I tell you that I was checking out, I already had my bags packed and my ticket booked. I get up suddenly, head still ringing and joints still aching. I cringe when I look up, the back of my neck spreading ice cold agony through my body.

  Andrea, kneeling beside me, smiles softly and shakes her head. “You have a bad habit of dying.”

  Still on my hands and knees, I try to speak—my voice comes out scratchy, like a whisper. I clear my throat, spit, and then say, “I get it from my mom.” I shut my eyes. Head hurts. Throat aches. “I actually died again?”

  “No,” she says, helping me to my feet, “but you were very close to closing your Contract.”

  I rest my hands on my knees and bend over, still feeling like I’ve been thrown against the asphalt, which, sure, I technically have been, but Gods. I’ve been in car crashes before, but this kind of whiplash sucks. “Thanks for the save,” I mutter. She rubs my back. I push away her hand on reflex. “But I really think I should get going now.”

  Her hair flows over her shoulder, as if she’s wrapped in a windy cyclone of her own. The Barrens still quietly burn around us, the corpses on the ground still burning and bubbling on the asphalt. But standing next to her feels refreshing, like I’m drinking from a busted fire hydrant during summertime in New Salem—what, you want a fancy metaphor? Well, I’m not a fancy person, and I’ve never actually drank spring water before, not unless you count the tap water that tastes like rust from my kitchen sink. Whatever. The point is that she feels like…I don’t know, like summer, like butter and sunlight and wind that flows over your cuts and makes them feel a little better.

  “Does this mean the Summoning worked?” I ask her quietly.

  “No, it didn’t,” she says, laughing a little. “I was watching, as I’m obligated to do in your Trial Period, and I thought that my investment would be better spent dying a hero's death, and not within the bowels of the Barrens.”

  “Hey,” I say tiredly, swaying on my feet, “at least I saved a baby, right?”

  She sucks air through her teeth. “Unfortunately, you’ve only worsened its situation.”

  I scoff. “Not my problem, blame the cat—he’s the one who messed up somehow.”

  “Kacey,” she says softly, like she’s trying to parent me, which makes my skin crawl. “I want you to try to expand your senses. As a Mage, you’ve got more than a regular human—let your magic interact with the world, don’t just hold onto it and keep yourself closed. You’ve got to let yourself understand the world around you if you’re going to be the one to save it. From the dirt to the heavens, everything teems with magic—feel all of it.”

  “What’s that got to do with the baby being in danger?”

  She sighs. “I might have to request an extension for your Trial Period.” I don’t know if that means I’m stupid in her eyes, or maybe even slow, and when I’m just about to ask her, she says, “Magic attracts magic, yes?”

  I shrug one shoulder, then wince and hold it. Still healing. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “And what object, or place, anywhere around you, could be teeming with it?”

  I shrug again, albeit with a lot less motion this time. “Dunno, the canyon?”

  “The old forge, child,” she says, waving her hand over my shoulder. “I’m not meant to directly aid you in every step of your way, but just this once, Gods above, understand that Kacey needs help—and to put it simply, magic attracts magic, and stronger magic attracts lesser magic. A moth to light, albeit an unwilling one to a flame.”

  I slowly turn around and look at the forge, shading my eyes from the harsh sunlight. “It’s abandoned.”

  “It’s a breeding ground for the decrepit,” she tells me. “And they have your Marked.”

  “And if I don’t want to nearly die again,” I mutter, “I’ve got to kill the Marked and get better at this?”

  “That’s certainly a path you are free to take.”

  “What does that even—” She’s gone, and I’m talking to thin air. Haha, very funny, lady.

  Fuckin’ demigods or whatever the hell she is.

  I sigh, look up at the sky, and quietly swear—to the clouds, to the sun, to the Pantheon? That’s anyone's guess, and I’m leaving it up to interpretation, because if they’re all watching me, just like Andrea is doing, then…

  Fine, fuck it—I’ll give ‘em a show, and I guess that means hunting down my Marked.

  And saving the stupid cat, too.

  Maybe I should’ve listened to him warn me about doing that, I think. Too late for that now, anyway.

  I’ll buy him some kibble from the upper shelves the moment I can to apologize.

  Until then, I guess I’m going bounty hunting.