“I’m not dead yet,” she whispered, the words bitter as old runoff as she looked up at the dark. “The pact still stands! I gave you your name, Leviathan! I called you here. I let you in. Until I die, you aremine, and I order you to help me!”
A sigh rattled through the giant shadow, and then black tentacles began landing around her like falling bombs, crushing the screaming Mortal Spirit back down into the black, fetid mud.
“And keep her there this time,” Algonquin snapped, sinking back into the flood. “I’m going to get more water.”
I’ll do what I can,but it won’t be long. Until you let me in, I’m only a shadow, and shadows can’t fight gods.
She knew that, but a shadow was what she had, so a shadow was what she would use. It wasn’t as though she had a choice now, anyway, so Algonquin left him to it, rushing off through the flooded landscape to ready her lakes for war.
And behind her, hidden by the dark, the Leviathan held on just long enough. The moment he’d honored the letter of the deal that had bought him a name and a crack in this plane, he faded into the dark, releasing the screaming spirit of the DFZ into the ruins that had been her city.
***
Marci was still in the dark when Raven let her go.
“Wait,” she cried, grabbing his talons before he could escape. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Why not?” he croaked, curious. Or, at least, hesoundedcurious. She couldn’t tell for sure since she couldn’t see anything but black.
“You said you’d take me back to the world of the living,” she said angrily. “This is just back where I started.”
She’d know this particular dark anywhere. It was the same empty blackness she’d seen right after she’d died, before she’d figured out how to open her eyes. Or maybe someone had taught her? Marci couldn’t remember, and she didn’t have time to worry about it now. Even Ghost wasn’t with her anymore, which was cause enough for panic.
“This is no time for tricks, Raven,” she said, trying not to sound scared. “Take me back to my bodynow.”
“Silly child,” the spirit replied, his mocking voice soft as a feather in her ear. “Where do you think you are?”
His talons vanished from her hand as he finished, and the darkness became heavy in a way Marci had never felt before. Heavy and cold and solid, like a cement blanket pressing down on top of her. She was still trying to figure out what had happened when she realized she couldn’t breathe.
Terror shot through her. Marci began to panic in earnest after that, fighting and clawing and kicking at the black weight that was holding her down. Dirt, she realized as her fingers dug in. She was buried underdirt. Buried alive.
“Marci!”
Ghost’s shout was a real sound in her ears, not a sensation in her head. It was also muffled, coming from somewhere above her. When she tried to yell back, though, all she got was a mouth full of soil. In the end, she had to settle for digging, pawing frantically at the dirt with her hands until, at last, she broke through, plunging her arm up out of the shallow grave someone had built over her body.
The moment her hand punched free, deathly cold swallowed it. A second later, Ghost yanked her up, plucking her body out of the dirt and into the too-bright light of the world. Therealworld, filled with real air that she sucked deep into her lungs before collapsing back to the torn-up ground, coughing and spitting the dirt out of her mouth as she fought to catch her breath.
“Are you okay?” Ghost asked, slapping his hand down hard on her back to help clear her lungs.
Marci coughed again, raising a shaking hand to brush the dirt off her face. “I’m alive,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse. “I’malive.”
It felt too good to be true, and since things that were too good to be true usually were, Marci began frantically checking her body. Other than being filthy and numb with cold, though, she was fine.
Her limbs were all there, whole and unbroken. Her head was good, and her lungs were working great now that she’d coughed out all the dirt. Even the hole General Jackson had shot through her chest was healed, though you’d never know it from her T-shirt, which still had a giant bloody hole in the front. Below the filthy fabric, though, her skin, muscles, organs, and bones all felt perfectly fine.Toofine.
“How is this possible?” she asked shakily, pressing her dirty hands to her face. “I didn’t even rot.”
“You can thankmefor that.”
Marci whirled around to see Raven directly behind her, perched on top of what looked like the blackened remains of a gigantic bonfire. The fine ash and charred bits didn’t smell like fire, though. They didn’t smell like anything. After all the weirdness of her recent life, that seemed like a minor detail. At least until Marci realized where they were.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, leaning into Ghost as she looked up at the picturesque valley surrounded by forest and crowned with a mountain that she knew way too well. “You brought me toReclamation Land?”
“Technically, you never left,” Raven said. “This is where you died, if you’ll recall.”
It wasn’t something Marci could forget. Now that she knew where she was, though, the giant burn pile Raven was sitting on had a new, far more sinister edge.
“Is that…?”
