by Carter Roy
But Madame Burque only turned and hefted up the glass rod like a spear.
“Close your eyes!” I shouted in French, and Mathilde did, just as Madame Burque thrust the spear of glass through her heart.
Mathilde strained against the ropes holding her, coughed, and then slumped forward and began to die.
I cried and lunged at Madame Burque, but all I managed to do was knock my chair off the worktable and to the concrete floor. I landed on my broken arm, and the pain nearly overwhelmed me, but I kept my eyes open, and that’s how I saw it: a stream of sparks geysering up from Mathilde’s body.
“The stars!” Madame Burque whispered. “So beautiful!”
She, her husband, and their two workers stared in wonder as a silent stream of light made of thousands of bright motes flowed from Mathilde’s body, a wondrous column of sparkles that rose straight through the skylights and up into the night, where it split apart like the blazing branches of a burning tree, speckled lines of light shooting off in dozens of directions.
It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.
And also the most horrible.
And then Mathilde’s head rolled back on her neck and a pulse of energy blasted out from her. It wasn’t a sound, a light, or a wind—but somehow all three at once.
I was fortunate in that I’d already fallen to the floor and rolled under a worktable. Everyone else in the room was struck fully by the departure of Mathilde’s soul.
Madame Burque and her husband were slammed into the wall behind me; the glassworkers were blown in the other direction. Every piece of glass in the building was pulverized.
After a few minutes, I realized that my chair had broken when I fell; I could work myself free. I stood, and looked at the devastation around me. It was as though an explosion had gone off. The Burques and their assistants appeared to be as dead as Mathilde in her chair in front of me.
It was difficult to see the knots through my tears, but after some time, I managed to untie her. Then I cradled Mathilde in my arms and carried her home.
CHAPTER 17
BORDERLINE CRAZY
“She was dead?” I asked. “For real?”
“Yes, Ronan, for real—and it was a disaster in many ways. The premature death of a Pure always has repercussions—natural and manmade disasters I don’t care to enumerate. Mathilde’s death was no exception.”
“That’s … terrible,” I said.
“Yes, yes it was,” Dawkins said. “It was the first and only time I saw the blazing bridge some Blood Guard have written about. Each of the thirty-six Pure are linked, and when one of them dies, the other thirty-five feel it.”
“Feel what?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? A tickle of electricity? A wave of sadness? A sense of a light having gone out in the world? Whatever they feel, it’s the passing of a Pure soul that causes it.”
I leaned my head against the grimy door and said, “I’m really sorry, Jack.”
“Thanks, Ronan,” he said. “Was a long time ago, but your sympathy means a lot, anyway.” He reached over and tapped the lock. “Get back to work.”
“Did someone at least find the people from the glassworks?” I asked.
“No. The bodies were never found—not the hundreds of people who’d sacrificed their souls for the Perceptor, not the workers who’d fashioned that evil mask, and not the Burques.”
Something in the lock cylinder gave, and the nail in my hand moved freely. Gripping the flat metal band, I wiggled both and carefully twisted them.
The lock gave out a high-pitched creak.
Eyebrows raised, Dawkins reached up and tried the handle.
It turned.
“Bravo, Ronan!” he said, standing and giving me a hand up.
“Thank you, Greta, you mean,” I said. “She’s the one who showed me how.”
“No, I meant thank you, Ronan,” he said. “It was you who did it.”
We eased the door open and stuck our heads around the corner. The flatbed dolly was still parked outside, next to a row of crates that lined the hallway all the way into the big room.
“I don’t see anyone,” I whispered.
“Me neither,” Dawkins said. “Let’s see if we can’t find a better vantage.”
We kept to the shadows behind the row of crates and crept forward until we could see into the big main room.
A small metal hatch had been raised in the wall opposite the main doors, letting in a fiery orange light. We could see Legion, her team of Bend Sinister agents, and on one side, tied to a chair and forgotten, Greta. Standing by her, a drawn saber at the ready, was the huge guy who’d locked us inside the bunker.
“Those cartons piled beside Greta,” Dawkins said. “I can use them to sneak up close to her. But if I simply charge in, that big dolt with the sword will act before I am able to rescue her.”
“You’re going to need a distraction,” I said.
“A really huge distraction,” Dawkins said. “Something foolish and noisy. Something borderline crazy.”
I couldn’t stop myself from grinning a little bit. “What did you have in mind?”
He eyeballed the dolly parked by our cell. “You played baseball, right? How good’s your pitching arm?”
The dolly wouldn’t budge.
While I kept watch, Dawkins had stacked the old ration cartons from the bunker onto the dolly in the shape of a big U. “You’ll coast down into the room on this dolly,” he’d explained, “safe behind these walls of cartons.”
“Safe?” I’d repeated.
“Relatively safe, for a minute or two,” he said. “You’ll want to flee the dolly and hide once it’s reached the far side of the room.” He picked up a fifty-year-old pint can of pasteurized milk. “This was the closest thing I could find to a baseball’s weight and size. As you coast through the room, lob these at that big flood lamp.”
“They’ll see me,” I said.
“Obviously, Ronan,” Dawkins said. “That’s what ‘distraction’ means. Anyway, if we’re lucky, you will smash the bulb, and we’ll have a few sweet minutes of darkness to rescue Greta and get out of this place.”
It wasn’t the greatest of schemes, but we didn’t have a lot to work with, and we didn’t have a lot of time. So I gave Dawkins a thumbs-up and said, “I’m good to go,” and then watched as he slipped down the passage and vanished around the corner.
It was only after he was gone that I discovered the dolly was too overloaded to move.
I tried again, leaning against the push bar and straining until my sneakers slid backward.
Soon Dawkins would be in position, counting on me to create a distraction. There was no way around it: I’d just have to remove a row of cartons from the wall he’d built up. Less cover for me, but maybe I’d be going fast enough that it wouldn’t matter.
I went around to grab a box off the front, and that was when I spotted the black canvas pull strap, almost invisible under the front edge of the cartons. The strap had been tightened against the base of the dolly, but when I tugged on the buckle, it spilled out a loop big enough for me to fit loosely around my waist. I could drag the dolly like an ox with a cart.
I stepped into the loop, raised it to belt height, and leaned forward.
The dolly rocked slightly on its wheels.
I tried again, this time throwing all my weight into it.
The dolly rolled an inch and then stopped dead.
I lunged against the strap again and again, until the dolly had some momentum and was rolling along without stopping.
Pulling the dolly got easier fast. Pretty soon I didn’t have to lunge anymore and was almost jogging, the strap tight around my waist, the dolly gaining speed right behind me as it neared the ramp at the end of the hallway. I had it going at a nice clip when a thought hit me: the dolly was going to accelerate on the ramp down into the big room.
And I was in its way.
I tried slowing down, but the wall of boxes on the front of
the dolly nudged my shoulders.
I had no choice but to pick up my pace.
Of course, that meant the dolly picked up its pace, too.
By the time I hit the ramp, I was flat-out running for my life, the speeding dolly right on my heels. Knocking out the light was no longer an option, since I couldn’t reach the cans on the dolly. But somehow I still had to draw attention away from Greta and Dawkins.
So I did what came naturally.
“Help! Help! Help!” I screamed. “I can’t stop it!”
Did they turn and watch? Come after me with their swords in hand? I had no idea. I was afraid to look, afraid I’d trip and be run down.
Instead, my dolly and I hit the floor at the foot of the ramp and kept going—straight at two towers of crates next to the wall fifty feet ahead of me.
I had maybe three seconds before I would be smooshed like a bug.
When I’d crossed half that distance, I glimpsed a line of shadow between the two crate stacks: a narrow space.
I started tugging left, steering toward that gap.
In response, the dolly slewed the other way, pulling me right.
But by then I had run out of floor.
I leaped into the opening, and close on my heels, the dolly chewed through the wood, spilling cartons and packing material in its wake.
Luckily, the crates were stacked three deep, and the dolly stopped before it made it through the second row.
I fell between the third row of crates and lay there for a minute, out of breath and gasping. A single pint of condensed milk rolled away from the dolly and against my foot.
Greta.
I was supposed to have busted that flood lamp. Grabbing the can, I crawled out of the canvas pull strap and stood up.
That was when the stacks—already rocking back and forth because of the damage from the cart—started to fall over.
The gap I was standing in was too narrow for anything to hit me, but I could hear crates falling and splintering and breaking in the room. Along with people shouting. Probably at me.
There was just enough space between the back of the crates and the wall for a skinny thirteen-year-old, so I slid between them and worked my way out.
When I did, I found an open gray metal fuse box on the wall in front of me.
I ran my hand down the breakers and shut off each one.
“Lights out,” I whispered, and plunged the room into darkness.
Apparently, none of the Bend Sinister agents had flashlights. Or maybe they couldn’t find them in the sudden dark.
I made my way forward, crouched, and peeked around the spilled mountain of crates. Against the orange light from the open hatchway, I could make out three silhouettes.
“Two! Four!” Legion shouted. “You go after the girl and the Overseer. Five and Three, come with me. We’ll make sure the Truelove boy didn’t survive his little accident.”
The silhouettes strode toward where I was hiding.
“I hope you’re not hurt too badly, Evelyn Truelove,” Legion called. “Speak up so that we can dig you out from this mess.”
No way was I going to open my big mouth, but if it was noise she was looking for … I gripped the can of condensed milk.
Then, winding my arm, I hurled the can back to where the dolly had crashed. The can made a satisfying series of thumps and rattles as it bounced around in the wreckage.
“We hear you, Evelyn,” Legion said, changing course. “There will be no escape, you know. Evangeline Birk is on her way, and with her will come many of my brethren—too many to hide from.”
I jogged across the room and ducked behind the cartons Dawkins had used to sneak up on Greta.
And plowed right into someone.
A hand covered my mouth.
“It’s us,” Dawkins whispered. “That was inspired!”
Greta was crouched next to him, holding a sword. “That was insane,” she whispered.
“Two? Four?” Legion said, sounding alarmed. “I can’t reach you—what’s happened?”
Dawkins gestured: two Bend Sinister agents were out cold on the floor. “That ruckus you made covered a lot,” he said, handing me a sword and sword belt. “You’ll need these if we’re going to get out the front door.”
A loud buzzer rang.
“An alarm?” I asked, buckling on my weapon.
“I doubt it,” Dawkins whispered. “Otherwise it would have gone off a long time ago.”
“She has arrived!” Legion cried. “You won’t be able to hide from twenty of us, Blood Guard.”
“We need another way out,” Dawkins whispered. “And fast.”
“Five, Three, throw wide the doors and welcome in Evangeline Birk and her army of true believers. The time of the Reckoning is upon us!”
CHAPTER 18
THE BLAZING BRIDGE
The room flooded with bright light as three black vans drove in. Dark-suited Bend Sinister agents poured out of the vehicles, twenty of them at least. Last of all, a towering, pale, white-haired woman in fancy red-and-gold robes emerged.
She stopped to speak with someone—probably Legion—then the white-haired woman stepped in front of the headlights and held one hand high. All the agents got down on one knee.
“Three of our enemies are here, hiding in the dark. Find them and bring them into the light.” She clapped. “Go.”
“Evangeline Birk,” Dawkins whispered. “We meet again.”
“Again?” I asked.
“That way,” he said, pointing. “We’ll be briefly visible as we pass through that open hatchway, but it’s our only option.”
We’d taken cover behind a pile of crates twenty-five feet from the hatchway. Lying on its back in the orange light from the hatch was the metal chair Greta had been tied to, cut zip ties scattered around it.
“Jack,” I said. “The chair.”
“A bit too utilitarian for my tastes,” he said. “What about it?”
“Throw it,” I said. “Use it as a distraction.”
“Good idea.” Dawkins nodded. “The sound will draw their attention for a hot second, but then they’ll glance back the other way. So the moment you hear the chair hit, you run.”
“I’m ready,” Greta whispered, crouching down like a sprinter.
“Me too.” I faced forward.
Dawkins burst out, dropping and sliding the last ten feet flat on his back. He caught the chair with one arm and hugged it to his chest as he shot all the way across the floor to the far wall.
Then he rolled to his feet, took the chair by its back, and spun around like a hammer thrower. Once, and then faster a second time, and the third time so fast that he seemed to blur. After the fourth spin, he started generating wind.
When he slowed down abruptly, the chair had vanished.
He’d hurled it.
It struck a faraway wall and gonged. Then it must have ricocheted into something else, because for a good minute, things banged and rang and cracked and tumbled.
But by that time we were long gone.
The hatchway opened into a low, narrow tunnel with fiery orange cloth walls. We sprinted along single file, Greta, then me, and then Dawkins. We had to run stooped over and step carefully—the tan metal floor was little more than a foot across and curved at the sides, with fat riveted seams every eight feet. “Where are we?” I whispered.
“No idea, but we’re climbing,” Dawkins said at the same moment I realized we were going uphill. “Happily, the slope of this tunnel has hidden us from the view of anyone who takes a peek into that open hatchway back there.”
“Guys,” Greta said, “Krisco, that artist who wrapped up the Brooklyn Bridge—that’s this!”
And I remembered the ride across the bridge, the cab filled with orange light.
“This beige metal beneath our feet? It’s one of the main cables. These two wires holding up the orange ceiling? They’re called auxiliary cables. We should probably use them as handholds. And it’s so bright in here because of all the
lights on the bridge.”
“So that building we just left was the … anchorage,” Dawkins said, “the place where these giant cables are fixed to the ground with tons of steel and concrete. Which explains those big spools back there—the silk for this Krisco fellow.”
Greta thumped her hand against the soft fabric wall. “We’re inside that stupid art project.”
“I thought you said it was a cool art project,” I asked, feeling queasy.
“Cool earlier, but stupid now that we’re stuck in it with the Bend Sinister chasing us.”
The main cable under my feet felt as solid as the ground, and thanks to the silk around us, I never really had to think about how high we were climbing. I just ran my hands along the auxiliary cables on either side of us and followed Greta. The uphill slope wasn’t so bad, and the seams every eight feet made good footholds.
We climbed fast and in silence.
And maybe it was because deep down I was a little bit terrified, or because I had a Pure in front of me, that Dawkins’ story of the death of Mathilde still rattled around in my brain.
Even if we managed to get Greta out of here safely, what would happen next? Sooner or later, my dad would tell the Bend Sinister what he’d figured out, and then Greta would forever be a target. She and her parents would have to start all over again, always looking over their shoulders for some random Bend Sinister nutcase who’d recognize Greta and attack her. And then Greta would suffer some sort of awful death like Mathilde.
It was no way to live. That wasn’t the kind of life I would wish on even the meanest kid at school, let alone my best friend.
That was when I noticed the slope of the cable was getting steeper.
“We’re at the tower!” Greta called back, and at about the same time, I came out of the silky tunnel into the blustery night. Next to me, loose ends of fabric snapped and billowed in the wind, casting flickering shapes on the orange-wrapped wall in front of me. The shadows almost made it look like the tower was on fire.
“Great,” I said. As if this whole escape could get any more like my nightmare.
The wrapping ended right before the place in the front of the tower where the suspension cable disappeared into the brick. But the tower was swaddled in orange silk, too.