Worlds War One

xxx [Autumn]

A dragon?

A nightmare. When Autumn was young, she would have terrible dreams. So bad, she would wake up screaming, covered in sweat, the whole house wakened by her hollering. Spring had been the one who stayed with her, held her until she fell asleep again. "It wasn't real, sister," Spring had said over and over.

Sometimes Autumn had had nightmares of terrible spirits terrorizing her family—then she ended up being a Ghost.

Other times, a fire-breathing lizard with great leathery wings had been chasing her.

Now, the Magi had a dragon.

"No," Autumn whispered and winked out.

The colors on the other side were soothing and harmless. Autmn liked being in the Nowhere, where even nightmares were bright orange and green and blue. The Magi at the end of the lane were neon purple, pulsating with power. She saw the Magi called Argyro holding out her bowler hat, brim up as if offering Saanvi a bowl of soup or asking for a donation. The only coin Saanvi had was an obol possessed with Private Golden's soul. The color of the object Argyro offered up to Saanvi was fiercely red, like fire, like the sun.

Autumn tried to hold her formlessness as long as she could. It was like holding her breath underwater. When she was six, Spring had taught her to swim one summer. They'd spent every day at the community pool. Her sister had been cautious and overprotective. She hadn't let Autumn go on her own, even after Autumn had been sure she could do it. "Not yet, Autumn. Not by yourself."

But now Autumn was all alone, the only one in the Nowhere, everyone else fleeting bright shadows made of ephemeral light. She wanted to stay. But as when she'd first gone into the pool all those years ago, Autumn could only hold her breath so long.

Saanvi was shouting—"—tumn, you have to poss—"

Autumn disappeared again.

Mama had been a mean drunk. Dad had already gone by the time Autumn was old enough to say the word. Mama's second husband was named Jack, and he'd been served best on the rocks. The drunken "Mrs. Daniels" would take out the pain of her loneliness on the only objects capable of keeping her company. Autumn was youngest, and Spring was in the middle. Junior was the eldest, and he'd taken the brunt of it. He was the man. Mama had been mad at Dad, and Junior had usually been his stand-in.

But it hadn't worked that way every time. Sometimes Mama Daniels had preferred a softer surface to land her fists. Spring had usually been the next best target to Junior. On occasion, especially as Autumn had grown older and her mouth had become bolder, Mama had taken a swing at her youngest. In those moments, she'd told her youngest it had been Autumn's fault that Dad had left. Three brats had been one too many. Mama Daniels had said she wished Autumn had never been born. Autumn hadn't asked to be born, especially into that family. But then she hadn't really been born, had she? Autumn had been reborn. Humanity was a disguise. Autumn was a Ghost called Pept of the A'aninin.

She'd wished many times when she was a kid that she could disappear.

And she could have all along. She just hadn't known it.

Autumn wanted to stay in the Nowhere forever.

She flipped back, Saanvi still yelling, "—'t you dare wink out on me again, you cowardly w—"

Autumn curled into a fetal position in the Nowhere. With practice, maybe she could stay here forever. Or perhaps she could go back to the Great Nothing and live out an immaterial existence. No one would want to smack her around in the phantom Fifth World. But Mama Daniels had died five years ago, and now Autumn understood that Ghosts were never dead. They go back to the Great Nothing. Autumn had no desire to live out eternity with the Ghost of her abusive mother.

Autumn was scared. A little girl all over again and a mother coming at her with a bottle—a bottle that breathed fire.

But fire couldn't hurt a Ghost. Maybe nothing could hurt a Ghost except for Johnny Rotten. Johnny Rotten had taken Autumn's sister from her. Now, the same soldiers who were supposed to be exacting justice for Spring got ambushed by a Magi wielding a dragon. They needed Autumn's help.

The only thing holding her back was the memories of a little girl who had only ever been a character played by Pept. Autumn wasn't real. The Ghost was real. And the Nowhere wasn't where she belonged. Pept belonged with the people who depended on her. As Autumn once counted on Spring and Junior.

She blinked back to the regular world, and Saanvi grabbed ahold of her arm, unexpected strength like an iron shackle on Autumn's wrist. "You need to possess that Magi before she releases that dragon and kills us all!"

"I . . ," Autumn stuttered. "I can do that?"

"You need to remember, Pept. You need to regain your full abilities. Otherwise, we're all dead!"

Saanvi shoved Autumn toward the pair of Magi, and it was like everything slowed down. The brother and sister terrorists looked intent on causing some major trouble. Hristos had his sister's cane as well as his own, looking like a skier ready for the slopes in a land with no snow. Argyro had her hand inside the opening of the bowler hat extended out toward Autumn and the Misfits. The woman was blonde and beautiful, but the expression on her face was hateful and ugly. She wanted to hurt Saanvi, and it didn't matter who else got in her way. Vengeance was ever a dangerous endeavor.

Saanvi had told Autumn to "possess" her. Autumn recalled the little girl in Exorcist and wondered if it was anything like that. Could she cause Argyro's head to spin and make the Magi's face spew vomit? What had Penina said? The truth is two twists from the telling. Did that make Autumn some kind of devil?

Autumn didn't know how. She was as much a greenie as the four soldiers who Saanvi had recruited for this mission. Now she realized why Saanvi had wanted her to come along. Autumn had abilities that might come in handy in a pinch. But Autumn didn't know how to access those abilities. She stood in front of Argyro as the Magi stared back. Autumn wanted to control her, stop her, and possess her as Saanvi was still shouting for her to do. But Autumn had no control over the actions of what was happening. Autumn couldn't make her stop. Argyro started to retract her hand, pulling something out of the hat.

Maybe it's a rabbit, Autumn wished. Please, let it be a rabbit.

It defied reason. Lately, Autumn had lost a sister to an ancient entity called Johnny Rotten, who'd made Spring one of his undead army. She'd discovered the true nature of the Wider World and had seen what was under the mask called Autumn Loloma. There were Ghosts, aliens, Angels and Demons, Golems, and witches. They were using a young woman's soul trapped in a silver coin to ferry them to someplace called the Forsaken Land. But this...

The dragon emerged from the opening of the hat. Autumn had never had children, but she knew the physics. Yet she still couldn't fathom how something so significant could come out of an opening so small. Magic was real, the truth two twists away from its fiction. The mythic creature was fantastic and terrifying. It stood two stories tall, a head as large as a delivery van and a wingspan of half a city block. Less snout than a beak, the mouth reminded Autumn of a snapping turtle's dangerous jawline. The eyes were red, the same color Autumn had seen in the Nowhere. The Ghost stood paralyzed with fear in front of a terrible killing machine.

Saanvi's words still echoed in Autumn's head—Otherwise, we're all dead.

Indeed.