by Laura Legend
Zach took her by the arm. They worked their way into the street and surrendered themselves to the flow of the crowd. Cass tried to pull herself together. They’d made a deal: they needed to recover the chains of St. Paul. Then they could track down Miranda. As she tried to focus, though, a black wave of emotion swept over her, fracturing her attention and bringing her to a standstill. Zach stopped too, buffering her from the crowd that flowed around them.
Cass looked up at Zach’s face. She used her sleeve to wipe her eyes again. She shook her head and said, “Sorry. It’s just . . . Richard.”
Zach nodded in agreement. It was obvious, though, that he had not been affected by the news in the same way she had. In fact, he seemed a bit distant, a bit cold to the touch. And more, Cass noted to herself, he didn’t seem surprised.
Cass searched Zach’s face, looking for an answer to her unspoken question. Zach looked away.
“You knew,” she said. “You already knew.”
“Cass . . .” he responded, touching her shoulder reassuringly.
But she could read the truth in his eyes. He’d already known that Richard was still alive. An ember of anger flared in her weak eye as she focused her full attention on him.
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Zach. I’m the goddam Seer,” Cass said, almost spitting her last words, poking a finger into his chest. “How long have you known?”
Zach couldn’t meet her eyes. He didn’t know what to say.
“How long? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just wanted to protect you,” he finally blurted out, meeting her eyes for just a second before glancing away again. “I was worried about you.”
Cass knew that this was true. He wasn’t lying about that. But it was also obvious that this was only part of the truth. He was hiding something. There was more to it than his honest desire to protect her.
Another black wave of hopelessness rose in her and crashed against the heavy, but weakening doors in her heart. Her body was rocked from the inside out.
Zach looked at her in alarm as the color drained from her face, her cheeks ashen.
Cass leaned into him. She took another fistful of his shirt, this time in earnest, and halfheartedly pounded her fists against his chest. She pulled his face down toward hers.
“Listen to me, Zach,” she said, her voice soft but dark. “If I can’t trust you, what have I got left?”
Zach closed his eyes, ashamed, and nodded his head.
Cass let go of his shirt, turned her back, and started to walk away. She let herself be carried along again by the wave of pedestrians.
Zach came to himself and rushed to catch up, calling after her.
“Cass,” he shouted. “Cass, wait up. I’m sorry. It wasn’t up to me.”
The apology hit Cass like a brick. She swiveled on her heels and turned back to him, taking him by surprise.
“You’re sorry?” she asked. “You’re genuinely sorry? The whole thing was truly out of your hands? It wasn’t up to you? You had orders or something to keep it a secret?” She waited a beat, letting her questions sink in. “If that’s true, then make it up to me.”
Zach gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he steeled himself. It was clear that if he had to choose between whoever was apparently giving him orders and Cass, he was going to choose Cass.
Cass let him have it. “Where is Richard? Do you know how to find him? Don’t lie to me.”
Zach didn’t answer.
Cass thought he might be avoiding the question. But he wasn’t. He was looking intently over her shoulder. He was staring at something just behind her, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Almost afraid to check, Cass slowly turned to see what he was staring at. They were standing deep in the shadow of a glass and steel office tower. It soared into the air above them.
A giant corporate logo hung above the main entrance to the building. The sign read: YORK ENTERPRISES.
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Cass didn’t hesitate. She also didn’t wait to see if Zach was coming with her. She headed straight for the front door and into the lobby of the building. Zach scrambled to catch up.
The lobby walls were, on three sides, made entirely of glass and open to the height of four stories. It captured the Underside’s perpetual twilight to stunning effect. A handful of expensive couches were artfully arranged in cozy groups around the space. A bank of elevators occupied the far side of the lobby. But a guard desk, a handful of armed men, and a set of metal detectors were positioned between the elevators and the main entrance.
Cass felt a calm settle over her, a sense of clarity and purpose that she’d been missing for months. She pulled her hairband free and let her black hair fall loose to her shoulders. Her eyes were focused. She radiated a subtle white light. She straightened her jacket, smoothed her form-fitting sweater, and strode across the lobby to the guard desk. Every head in the lobby swiveled to watch her.
“Oh, shit,” Zach whispered to himself as he finally pushed through the door and caught sight of her.
Cass stopped at the desk. Without missing a beat, she said, “I need to see Richard York.”
The guard, gangly in a uniform whose sleeves were too short, stuttered a response.
“Do . . . do you have an appointment . . . ma’am?” he managed.
“No. But tell him that Cassandra Jones is here.”
The guard pulled uselessly at the cuff of his shirt, as if to make himself look more presentable or authoritative in the face of Cass’s beauty and assertiveness. It didn’t work. He hesitated, trying to decide on a response.
But Cass wasn’t waiting. The subtle sense that she was radiating light from her own person grew stronger.
“Now,” she snapped.
“Yes, ma’am,” the guard agreed, picking up his phone’s receiver and hastily dialing a number.
Cass watched him carefully while he waited for someone to answer the phone on the other end. Finally someone answered. Cass couldn’t tell what they were saying but the woman’s voice on the other end sounded clipped and annoyed. The guard seemed almost as nervous to speak with her as he was to deal with Cass.
He relayed Cass’s request and then visibly cringed at the response, holding the receiver out and away from his ear, as if it could hurt him.
“Yes, Ms. Krishnamurti. Sorry to bother you, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. I’ll let her know.” He finished the call and slowly returned the receiver to its cradle, reluctant to turn and face Cass with bad news.
“I’m sorry to say, ma’am, that Mr. York is not here today. Perhaps if you contacted his office and arranged an appointment—”
Cass looked him in the eye.
“You’re lying,” she said simply as she swung herself gracefully over the countertop, twisted the guard’s arm behind his back, and gently planted his face on the counter next to the phone.
It happened so fast the guard didn’t have time to react.
“I’m afraid I’ll need to borrow your key,” Cass said. “I hope this doesn’t get you into too much trouble.”
He grimaced at the thought of what the woman on the other end of the phone would do to him if he didn’t stop Cass and, in response, Cass put a little extra pressure on his twisted arm. His face went red. While he squirmed, she smoothly unclipped the key card from his belt and took a step back.
As soon as she let go, the guard spun and took a swing at her. Cass stepped under his extended arm, hooked his foot, sat him down in his wheeled office chair, and, with a little shove, sent him rolling across the polished marble floor.
“I was telling the truth,” she said to no one in particular. “I need to see him.”
The handful of remaining guards had a more serious look—for one, their uniforms appeared to fit. They pulled billy clubs and Tasers and zeroed in on her.
Cass didn’t pay them any attention. She headed for the bank of elevators with her newly acquired key card. White light wafted like steam from the back of her jacket.
For Cass, time we
nt slack and the world around her felt like it had slowed to a crawl.
One guard approached from the left and another from the right. Cass kept walking. When the first one got close enough to swing his billy club at her head, she took a half-step to the side, tripped him, and sent him crashing into the second guard whose Taser was already crackling and ready. The first guard’s billy club connected squarely with the second guard’s head while the second guard’s Taser connected squarely with the first man’s armpit. Together, they slumped to the ground in a heap. They looked to be resting peacefully in each other’s arms.
Of the two remaining guards, one charged, aiming to tackle Cass. Cass waited until the last moment, vaulted over his back, and sent him crashing into a potted plant.
Cass looked the last guard in the eye and shrugged at him, as if to suggest that none of this was really her fault. He took a look at his compatriots, took one more look at Cass, and turned and ran the other direction, calling for backup.
Cass was at the bank of elevators now. She stopped to look back over her shoulder.
“You coming, Zach?” she called across the lobby.
Zach shook off his surprise at this whole series of events and sprinted across the lobby, avoiding the guards that littered the floor.
Cass smoothly inserted her key card into the marked slot and pushed the “up” arrow. They waited nonchalantly for a few seconds, then the elevator arrived.
The door dinged open.
Inside, Maya Krishnamurti was waiting for them.
15
Maya Krishnamurti was a striking woman. As soon as the elevator doors opened it was obvious that she was in command. Her designer heels and sleeveless power dress showed off the shape of her calves and the size of her biceps. Her raven hair hung straight to her waist. She looked like some wild but successful fusion of a Fortune 500 CEO and a prize fighter.
Maya stepped out of the elevator and displaced Cass and Zach with the sheer force of her presence. High-end tablet glowing in hand, she waved off the knot of guards who’d come running from deeper in the building.
“That will be all, gentleman,” she said with her Mumbai-born accent. “I will take it from here.”
Zach was staring. Cass gave him an elbow to the ribs.
Maya tapped and swiped at the tablet and the alarms went silent. Cass guessed that she was probably in her early forties but, remembering that many of the people in the building were probably among the Turned, decided that she had no idea how old this woman might actually be. Her blazing white teeth did look a little pointy.
After Maya had dispensed with the guards and the alarm, she turned her full attention to Cass and Zach. She had three or four inches on Cass and her stilettos almost put her eye to eye with Zach. She scanned them each from head to toe and back again, sizing them up.
“I can see why he likes you,” Maya said to Cass with a raised eyebrow. Then, gesturing toward the sword slung on her back, she added, “Just the idea of a ‘single, Asian female with doctoral training, wandering eye, and razor sharp sword’ would doubtless put some starch in his pants.”
Maya made some kind of note in her tablet, then looked Zach in the eye.
“You,” she said with a mix of derision and sympathy, “are clearly the cute side-kick destined to never get the girl.”
Zach started to protest but she cut him off. She was already headed back to the elevator, waving for them to follow her, heels clicking smartly on the marble floor.
Cass and Zach joined her in the elevator. The tube rocketed upward and, after the first few floors, opened onto an external view of the city. The scene, though, wasn’t what Cass had expected. Rather than looking out onto the Underside hub through which they’d entered, a view of London unfolded before them. It was late afternoon but the sun, low on the horizon, was still bright. The city gleamed.
Maya tapped and swiped a few more times, then, without looking up, held out her hand to Cass, beckoning with two manicured fingers for the return of the stolen key card. Cass grudgingly handed it over. Maya tucked it away and, absorbed in whatever other problems she was simultaneously handling, continued to ignore them.
In surprisingly short order, the elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors opened onto a penthouse suite with high, arching ceilings. One entire wall was two stories of glass, framing a view of London centered on the Thames and the Tower of London. A massive mahogany desk that must have been hundreds of years old anchored the room. The room, in general, embodied this same hybridity: the architecture was all steel, concrete, and glass, while the furniture, rugs, and bar looked like they’d been enjoyed for centuries.
Richard York was standing next to the wall of glass in gray slacks and a black turtleneck, his back to the elevator. His silhouette was dramatically backlit by the setting sun so that Cass and Zach had to shade their eyes with one hand in order to look directly at him.
Zach shook his head. “Figures,” he said under his breath, “the guy isn’t just alive, he’s been resurrected as a sun-god.”
“Yes,” Maya said loudly, signaling their arrival to Richard, “Apollo will see you now.”
Richard was surprised by their arrival. Evidently, he’d been honestly lost in thought, not just posing by the window. When he turned stiffly toward them, they could immediately see that he wasn’t the same man they’d known before. His shoulders were bowed, one arm was still in a sling, the other leaned on a cane, and a wicked new scar traversed the bridge of his nose.
But Cass could also see, even from the across the room, that he was struggling to control his emotions at the sight of her. Still backlit by the sun, his face shaded, he took her in for a moment, eyes hungry as his mouth opened slightly in an involuntary gasp. Then, quickly gathering himself, he closed his eyes as his features shifted into a calm, cool expression.
“Cassandra,” he said, nodding in her direction. “Zach.”
Involuntarily, Cass took a handful of steps toward him, her hand slightly extended at the sight of his injuries. Zach stepped closer and gently took her by the arm—not as if he were trying hold her back, but as if he were urging her to be careful.
Maya watched the whole tableau with her characteristic mix of detached amusement, rational assessment, and mild sympathy.
“Richard,” Cass said. “I didn’t know you were alive. And I didn’t dare believe it when they told me.”
She stopped, not sure what to say next. She could sense deep within herself a storm of violent emotions—relief, anger, and desire mingling together—but when she tried to give in to them, they receded, blocked off behind that interior door inside her, dim and distant. The result left Cass uncertain, and stuck. Richard waited. The ten yards or so between them felt like both a very short distance—practically nothing—and an unbridgeable divide.
The silence grew heavier. Cass settled for something honest but banal. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Richard returned the sentiment. “I feel the same. I’m glad to see that you are also well,” adding, after a beat, “and you, too, Zach.”
“I have a thousand questions,” Cass said, the ice broken. She pulled free of Zach’s gentle grip and started across the room toward Richard. The words came flooding out. “Did you see what happened with Judas? How did you survive? Why didn’t you contact me? Why leave me in the cold? What is going on with the Lost? Who is their new leader? Are you going to be okay?”
She was close to him now, close enough to reach out and touch him. They were both beautifully framed by the setting sun in a way that made Zach both squint and wince. Cass reached out to touch his broken arm or the scar on his nose, her hand hovering indecisively in the air without making contact.
“Why did you run away?” she asked.
Richard didn’t answer. But, as if in confirmation of the fact that he had run away, he turned aside and limped toward the bar to pour himself a drink.
“Cassandra,” he started, taking a sip from his crystal tumbler, “I’m sorry. This is all m
uch more complicated than you know.”
He took a long pull from his drink, finishing it off, and set the glass back down on the bar with a little too much force.
“I can’t, however, explain things right now. I didn’t want you to see me like this, tottering around the room like an old man. And, more to the point, we don’t have much time today. Company is reported to be on its way—evidently, they followed you here.”
Richard looked at Maya for confirmation of this point. She glanced down at her tablet and then nodded gravely.
“Things are spinning out of control,” Richard continued. “With Judas gone, the old order is collapsing and the old rules no longer apply. The Lost are growing wild and reckless. Their new leader hasn’t yet succeeded in uniting all the factions.” He paused. “In the old days, something like this would never have happened.”
“Something like . . . what?” Cass asked.
Richard ignored her question and continued, keeping a safe distance between them. “For the moment,” he said, “what I can do is to help you retrieve that relic. I can help you retrieve the chains of St. Paul from the basilica in Rome.”
Zach looked ready to decline that offer, but Richard dismissed him with a glance and turned his attention back to Cass.
“I’m in no condition to help you myself, but I’m going to send my oldest friend and most talented partner with you. She will help you in any way you ask.”
Richard looked past Cass to Maya. “Maya, go with them. Help however you can. Make sure they get whatever they need to secure the relic and find Miranda.”
Maya’s mouth opened in surprise, but she quickly recovered, set her jaw, and pressed her lips together in a thin, determined line.
Cass didn’t know whether to object like Zach or be surprised like Maya. In the end, she didn’t have a chance to decide how she ought to react.
At that same moment, alarms began to flash and a feminine, disembodied voice calmly informed them over the loudspeakers that building security had been breached.
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