by Platt, Sean
Chapter Eight
“Did you hear that?” Peers asked.
Lila turned to look at Peers. He wouldn’t stop pacing the bunker. The room reminded Lila of so many places she’d hoped to never think of again: her father’s Axis Mundi, Derinkuyu, their hidey-hole in Roman Sands, even Mount Sinai, where they overnighted in a cave once before seeking the Ark’s original location. Life, it seemed, had become one long series of dark holes. Although the alternative — the viceroy’s palace above — wasn’t much better. It was plush but reminded Lila of their mansion in Heaven’s Veil. And that had its own horrible memories.
“Stop it, Peers,” said Meyer.
“Stop what?”
“I don’t want to be here any more than you do. But we made our decision, as a group.”
“I just asked if anyone heard anything.”
“Stop it, Peers,” Jabari said.
“Jesus fucking Christ! What’s wrong with you people?”
Peers shouted too loud. His accented voice echoed in the concrete chamber. But it also proved Meyer and Jabari’s point: Peers was pacing because he was agitated and angry, not because he was stir-crazy. There was something going on with their fearless desert wanderer that he wasn’t saying, and ultimately that had been the nail in his otherwise reasonable plan’s coffin: too much unknown, too many frayed nerves, too many secrets that Peers obviously held and refused to divulge.
There are tunnels below Jabari’s mansion that even Jabari doesn’t know about? How do you know that, Peers?
How can you possibly know how to get into those supposed tunnels, Peers? And what makes you think you have any idea where they go … if they can get us to the Cradle to escape or not?
Why are you so sweaty, Peers? Why so jittery?
What are you hiding, Peers?
Lila stayed quiet, not liking the bunker more than anyone else (although she liked the decision to stay where Clara had gone missing an awful lot more), taking it all in. She didn’t feel as timid as she probably appeared. She was actually feeling bold, now that they’d made the decision to stay. She was turning over what Peers had said about Ravi: how he — not the Mullah at large — had written the note demanding the Ark be opened. It meant that Ravi was rogue, and that there was an outside chance that the enemy of her enemy might turn out to be her friend. Could she approach the Mullah, if she found a way to contact them? What was she willing to do if it meant getting her baby girl back?
Just about anything, really.
If action had to be taken — if someone needed to push Peers into danger so that no more of her people would fall to harm — Lila thought she could do it. Same for Jabari, if worse came to worst. She didn’t trust either of them. They both announced that things were done after they’d happened and nobody could verify anything one way or the other.
Oh, Clara was kidnapped? Sure, I’ll believe you weren’t involved even though you benefitted. And oh, the Astrals always just kind of paved the way for you despite your claiming not to be in league with them? Sure, no problem — I trust you.
Peers especially irked her. She didn’t have the deductive genius that her father and Kindred had with their blended minds, but she had her mother’s intuition. For some reason, everyone was taking Peers at his word. They’d always taken the man at his word. He’d shown them his Den full of Astral technology, but everyone believed that he and Aubrey had simply stumbled upon it. The Astrals didn’t chase Peers’s big, obvious bus through the desert, but everyone believed it was luck. Peers could yammer on and on that it happened because the Astrals wanted Cameron to use his key all along, but who was left to corroborate his story? Not Cameron, who was dead. Not Charlie, who knew all the Ancient Aliens lore — also dead. No. Their only expert was Mara Jabari, a woman whom — let’s not forget — Peers came to kill because her troops had murdered his son. And everyone sort of ignored that the conflict had vanished with their arrival.
Peers, Lila felt sure, was hiding something.
Something big. And bad. He’d been sneaking around most of the time like a teenage boy hiding porn. The fact that nobody had called him on his late arrivals, wild eyes, or flimsy excuses seemed ridiculous to Lila. He’d been around the night Clara had vanished, but nobody wondered if he’d been in any way responsible. Oh, it was the Mullah, Peers? I believe you. And yet the man seemed to know a lot about the Mullah.
He had plenty of reasons for them to hightail it to these alleged tunnels: The ship above was the “Dark Rider” and would “bring plagues.” It was the last in a long string of Astral dominoes. He seemed to feel it was his duty to protect Meyer and Kindred, but not really anyone else. He talked about those two as if they were men of legend then forgot about Lila, Piper, and Clara. Like they were all pawns in some big plan that everyone was turning away from and pretending not to see.
Sure, Peers argued to leave. But who stopped them? Who convinced the group to stay? Why, Jabari, of course. An admirable ploy: Peers got to look like he was against staying, when their secret partnership would keep them where they were. Perhaps so aliens could eat them.
Stop it, Lila. You’re being paranoid. And besides, you got your way. You wanted to stay.
The thought reminded her of Peers and his incessant pacing and mumbling, the way he kept saying things that implied the situation was turning bad (like “Did you hear that?” when there was nothing to hear). At least the others were calling him on his transparent protests — or, in the case of his maybe-partner-in-crime Jabari, kept pretending to.
“Look,” Peers said after taking a long few minutes to calm himself. “At the risk of being shouted at again, I’m telling you, I actually did hear something.”
“And? What do you want us to do about it?” Meyer glanced at Kindred, but his twin seemed to be stewing even more deeply than Lila. Kindred had been strange lately. Angrier. A shorter fuse. More bent on logic and intolerant of any emotion-based decision — which was ironic, considering his own ramped-up emotion (anger) was half the problem.
“Check to see what it was,” Peers answered.
“No point,” said Jabari. “Whatever happens, this is still the safest place.”
Peers looked like he might reiterate his supposed opinion that the Cradle was the safest place, accessible through these tunnels he’d have to be a Mullah spy to know about. Instead, he said, “If we wait until their plagues are too far along, we’ll never escape in time. You can’t flee natural disasters and disease by hiding out in the epicenter.”
“You’re free to leave if you want,” Meyer said.
“You have to go with me.”
But even as another round of mumbling circled the group, only Lila seemed to see the subtext. That you wasn’t a collective. He didn’t need to take the entire group. Only Meyer and maybe Kindred. Why? And why was nobody questioning him?
She watched him, eyes narrow. He’d been the last person to see Jeanine alive. The last person to see Charlie, other than possibly Jeanine. He might have been the last person to see Clara before she disappeared. And now he had all sorts of insider knowledge about what was happening that even Jabari — who had credentials at a bona-fide alien think tank — didn’t.
“We’re staying here,” Kindred mumbled.
Peers stopped pacing. He perked up then put his hand behind his ear as if listening. His posturing was so annoying, Lila came close to standing up and punching him to the floor.
But she paused when Piper’s head cocked, too.
“You hear it, don’t you?” Peers said, eager.
“Maybe.”
“It could be anything. The big ship opening and sending something down. Shuttles flattening the city.”
“Well, if shuttles are flattening the city, let’s definitely run right out there.”
Peers’s head flicked toward Lila. She’d been a quiet hole in the group, so her speaking now — and with such vitriol — was like a knife.
“We have to get out of here. Trust me. I know! If we stay, things will be so much worse!”
>
“How do you know, Peers?” Meyer asked.
Piper stood. Touched her temples. Seemed to listen.
“She knows. She can feel it,” Peers said, pointing at Piper.
Then Piper sat.
“Maybe. But maybe not.”
And Peers, his composure shattering, screamed, “We have to leave! We have to get the fuck out of here before Armageddon begins!”
“What’s coming, exactly, Peers?” Meyer asked.
Lila stood. Faced Peers. She was a foot shorter than him, but she moved very close, nearly chest to chest, and stared.
If you had anything to do with taking my daughter and keeping her from me, she thought, I’ll slit your throat.
Peers looked down at Lila, blinked, looked away. Lila stared for another three seconds, basking in his discomfort.
“I’m going to take a bath,” she announced and walked away.
She made it to the basement’s surprisingly well-appointed bathroom, turned on the water, and started to scream.
Chapter Nine
Clara ran through the streets trailing Nick and Ella, realizing she’d apparently decided to trust and join them without ever making a real decision. They ran fast and Clara followed. After several blocks she finally stopped to look back and see that they weren’t just heading away from the small, vacant home the Mullah tunnel had opened into, but away from the palace as well.
She thought of her mother. She thought of Piper, who for some reason she could feel much more than usual, but who she doubted could precisely see or feel her. She thought of the others. And for the scantest of seconds Clara considered running back to them, knowing she wanted them, and that they must be worried about her. But the Lightborns’ pull was stronger.
Every second she stayed with them, Clara’s mind seemed to strengthen its connections to theirs — and not just to Nick and Ella; also to the people they were linked to and those peoples’ first-degree connections as well. She couldn’t focus while running, but to Clara’s expanding mind the potential of this new Lightborn kinship felt like a closed bud opening to bloom. She would, in time, be able to touch any of them, anywhere.
She imagined the feeling of a drug. Like the psychedelics that Grandma Heather and Grandpa Meyer had taken, which Clara discovered after exploring their past feelings. Like the mental trip to another place. And like a drug, the sensation was addicting.
Clara wanted her mother. But the thought of severing herself from these others now that she’d finally found them struck her as intolerable, impossible, unthinkable.
Inside her head, boxes opened. Tight knots unwound themselves without effort. Avenues opened, and puzzle pieces slotted into place. And she thought: that alarm we all just heard. It means something — but not what the rest of the people in Ember Flats would think it meant if they were able to hear it, which they weren’t.
It wasn’t a public signal.
The alert the three children had felt? The thing that had been like a flashing light and a blaring klaxon? That had been Astral. Something the aliens were sharing with each other, not meant for general consumption.
Clara saw a branching tree of light, with other Lightborns at the end of every limb.
Where are we going? Clara shouted to Nick and Ella, inside her mind.
[We have a place.]
The voice wasn’t a voice but still had something like a sound, a tone — sharp-edged, matter-of-fact, direct, yet understanding. Nick.
And then a softer presence showed Clara what Nick had spoken of. She saw a large room with little flair and a lot of warmth: couches in varying stages of disrepair arranged haphazardly around a large, open space, most carved into semi-personalized nooks. One was claimed with posters, stuck to the wall behind it. Another was piled with pillows in cat-patterned fabric. One had been painted — a couch, painted. The surface of the paint had been hard at first, probably, but now it was cracked and softened from use: small islands of upholstery bearing tiny isles of paint rather than a big unbroken expanse of color.
But the Astrals …
As if in answer, Clara’s thought was cut short as the trio ran up on a large patrol of Reptars. The scene had not been made ready for children’s eyes. The things were eating, and what they were eating was, in at least two cases, still alive. Limbs and blood were everywhere, painting the walls like a macabre mural. As they arrived, practically skidding to a stop on their sneakers, two of the black animal things flicked their insect legs and rushed off between a row of broken-windowed buildings. There was another human scream from that direction, then it was severed as if with a blade.
(Don’t run, Clara.)
Clara fought her muscles. She turned to Ella, whose eyes repeated the same thing her mental voice had whispered: Don’t run.
But although Clara herself understood, her legs and arms did not. When you encountered Reptars, you ran. It’s what their group had always done. It’s what had kept them alive.
Images flashed through Clara’s mind, all from Nick, attempting to convince her in the fastest way possible not to move. Words were too slow. Pictures and feelings and other people’s memories spoke millions of words in slivers of seconds.
She saw a group of children surrounded. She saw them exit without a scratch, practically elbowing their way through the frothing Reptar circle as if politely excusing themselves.
She saw a representation of an old-school circuit, with a component missing.
She saw images from stories Clara remembered from when she’d been younger and Mom had read out loud from her Vellum, all now coming from Nick’s memories: Br’er Rabbit who’d fooled the fox; a pirate with two blind eyes. Then seeming thousands of personal recollections from within the Lightborn network, each showing a Reptar or a Titan or a shuttle, and a child walking heedlessly by.
[They’ll see you if you run.]
But now Clara understood. The Reptars wouldn’t precisely see her, would they? They’d see her emotions. They’d see the panic that accompanied running.
Which meant that right now, looking the black things in their alien eyes, the Reptars weren’t seeing them at all. Not in the way they saw normal children or adults. Not in the way they saw targets or food.
Clara found herself remembering the Mullah tunnels. The way Sadeem had shoved her into the closet so she wouldn’t be discovered. The way the threat that time hadn’t been Reptars but the tiny BB drones.
She looked to Ella, a question on her lips. But Ella shook her head, took her hand, and led Clara away. Then, away from the Reptars, she said, “They don’t seem to notice us. You didn’t know that?”
Clara fought a hammering heart and shook her head. “I’ve always been with someone else.”
Nick held up a hand. The Shh! Clara heard came from Nick’s mind, not his lips.
A low chattering came from every direction at once. It was like one long, low Reptar purr. The sound of a thousand horrid things emerging from dark closets in the middle of the night.
More Reptars emerged from the shadows. They came in rough pairs, two-by-two like soldiers in formation. Seeing it reminded Clara that although Reptars looked like animals, they were beings with brains and thought and logic — Astrals as much as Titans. Watching so many enter the street around them was chilling. They moved with an icy precision, each pair moving to a dwelling and camping at its front like guards at a palace.
A door across the street banged open. The middle-aged woman who emerged had a front covered in red, as if she’d spilled something across her chest. Her eyes, even from where the children were standing, were wide enough to see whites all the way around.
Maybe the Reptars couldn’t see the children, but the woman could. She stumbled three steps toward them with her hand out, failing to notice the new Reptar sentinels flanking her house.
Then she fell to the sidewalk and didn’t get up.
A scream. Another scream.
More people emerged, many grasping their throats, most with the same curious red wash down t
heir front. Some had the same red on their hands, and one old man had it all over his face, as if splashed there.
Some of the people collapsed as the woman had, frozen.
Those who didn’t came toward the children as if drawn. But then the Reptars moved out between them, and the people stepped back, stopping when they encountered the other Reptars behind them, surrounded.
The surviving and red-painted people of Ember Flats stared at the children, but the Reptars seemed not to notice.
Two words entered Clara’s mind — maybe from Nick or Ella, maybe from within herself, maybe from the air as an intercepted Astral thought, or maybe even from Piper, all the way back at the palace:
Gathering.
And Plague.
The warning siren the children had heard in their minds wasn’t something these people had heard. Their shocked faces told Clara that they’d seen something different. Something that had terrified them to the core.
No, the siren had been Astral to Astral, telling the others that it was time.
Time for what? Clara wondered.
Ella said, I’d rather not find out.
Chapter Ten
Peers sat on one of Jabari’s couches, then Nocturne came and sat with his head on Peers’s knee. He looked down, and then, after a few seconds, ran his hand along the dog’s head and neck in long, slow strokes. Poor, dumb dog, with no idea of what was going on. Lucky animal — still occupied only with comforting his master, playing with toys, tugging on ropes, and chasing thrown balls.
He looked around the room. The tension was practically visible. Meyer and Kindred were angry. They wanted to leave — to try whatever it took to flee the city and reach the escape vehicles Jabari had planned for but had given up accessing. But he didn’t have allies in Meyer and Kindred. They — like Jabari, Piper, and Lila — were untrusting. He couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t trust himself right now, either.
Peers couldn’t tell them how he knew about the tunnels, how to get through them, or where they almost certainly went: because he’d once been Mullah, and knew how they thought.