by Gregory Ashe
When they arrived at Union Station, the streets were clogged with cars, freezing the river of traffic. On every side, people tumbled out of stalled cars, dragging suitcases after them as they walked through the street to reach the station.
“Damn it,” Harry said. “I can’t leave the car here. Go!”
They got out onto the frozen pavement. A blonde in a massive, white fur coat brushed past Irene, her hair streaming after her like an angel in a medieval manuscript—all hard lines and angles. Behind the woman came a heavy-set man with at least a dozen bags slung from arms and shoulders. Irene pressed herself against the Ford to keep from being trampled.
By the time Irene circled the car, Cian was halfway to the station, and Pearl was trotting behind him and throwing backward glances at Irene. Irene pulled her coat tight and ran. Her shoes slid over the frozen brick pavement, and she collided with a beautiful silver car before catching her footing and continuing forward. A luggage cart rolled in front of her, pulled by a dour-looking Indian man, and Irene stumbled to a halt.
Ahead, Cian had disappeared into the station, and Pearl cast a single, backward glance before following him.
Irene grabbed the revolver in her pocket.
Cian Shea was being a bastard.
She darted around the luggage cart, crossed the last stretch of crowded sidewalk, and plunged into the station. If anything, the building inside was even more crowded than the street had been. A man with a handle-bar mustache dragged a screaming child past Irene. The two disappeared into crowd like stones into the ocean. Irene raised up onto her toes and looked over the swarm of people. As she looked, Irene focused on the people who stood above the rest of the crowd. A tall, slender man with a snowy beard cocked his head as he listened to someone who stood below him. A mammoth-sized woman in mink—enough mink to bankrupt a small nation—strode through the crowd, as though the men and women before her were stalks of grass.
Stalks of grass in imminent danger of being crushed.
Irene kept looking. She saw a boy who had climbed onto a shoe-polisher’s chair, and a boy who was thin as a reed and looked like he was being carried by the crowd rather than walking, and two men in trench coats with their hats pulled low. And then she saw a shock of ridiculous, dark-red hair. Cian.
Her eyes swept back to the men in the trench coats. They were headed straight for Cian.
Irene pushed her way into the crowd. At first, the going was difficult as she forced a path between sweating bodies and frozen blocks of luggage. Then, after she broke through the dense, outer lines, her passage became easier. Irene ducked between paperboys and porters and pristinely dressed men and women. She kept her eyes on the men in the trench coats as she hurried.
“Irene,” Pearl said, snagging Irene’s sleeve and dragging her free from the human current. Pearl and Cian had stopped in an alcove. The crowd swept past them. “He wouldn’t wait.” The last sentence Pearl pronounced as a question, and she glanced from Cian to Irene.
Cian ignored both of them, staring out at the platforms, but obviously listening.
“Golems,” was all Irene said.
That got Cian’s attention. He looked at her, and when he did, he flushed.
Good.
Irene pointed at the golems. The two bulky figures moved like toy soldiers.
“God damn it,” Cian said. “You two keep going. I’ll try to slow them down.”
“In here? With all these people?” Irene said. “Don’t be mad. You’ll get someone killed.”
“She’s right,” Pearl said.
“They’re coming,” Cian said.
“Do you know how to stop them?” Pearl asked.
“Cut the chain in their neck.”
“Have you done it?”
Cian shook his head.
“I have. You two go ahead. I heard Sam was catching a train east. Start with those platforms.”
Before Cian could argue, Pearl disappeared into the wash of the crowd. Cian swore and started after.
Irene grabbed his arm.
“Irene,” he said.
“She knows what she’s doing. Let’s go.”
He grumbled something, then said, “Hold on.”
Irene kept her grip on his arm as he plowed through the mass of people. It was a bit like being tugged along behind a train. A train that had a very nice, very muscular arm.
A train that had been behaving like a total ass.
After a moment, though, they reached the trainshed, and the crowd separated into streams headed for the different platforms. A dusty layer of smoke hung in the air, lining the back of Irene’s throat with the taste of coal and making her cough. A train whistle shrieked, cutting through the noise of the station. Irene kept a hold of Cian’s arm.
“I see signs for New York and Philadelphia,” Cian said. He started towards them.
“Wait,” Irene said.
“We have to hurry.”
“Cian, stop. Pearl said that her sources told her that Sam was going east.”
“Yes, and if we don’t hurry, we might miss him.”
“But what if that’s what Sam wanted us to think?”
Cian paused. “What do you mean?”
“Sam’s smart. And more than that, he knew Harry wouldn’t just let him go. He knew we’d be after him. And Sam must have had friends.”
“The kind of friends who might tell Pearl that Sam was going east.”
Irene nodded.
“So what now? That leaves a lot of platforms to cover, Irene. We can’t watch them all.”
Irene turned in a circle, studying the trainshed and the platforms, searching for anything that might tell her where Sam was planning to go. The names of cities blurred together. Coal smoke and cigarette smoke and the smell of too many bodies blended in her lungs. A cocktail that reminded her of traveling to Oberlin for the first time. She took a deeper breath and smelled Cian, the smell of his hair and skin, filling her nose and sending electric sparks through her chest. The feeling mingled with despair.
The trainshed was too big to search.
“We can’t just stand here, Irene.”
She nodded. “Let’s split up.”
Cian was staring up at the roof of the trainshed.
“Hello,” Irene said. “Is the air too thin all the way up there? Did you hear me?”
“Irene,” Cian said. “I don’t think we need to search all the trains.”
“Why?”
He pointed up to an exposed steel girder. A massive spider hung from a glinting thread. Two more spiders fell from the girder, dropping towards a train that let out an ear-splitting whistle. With a plume of smoke, the train began to pull away from the platform.
“I think the Children already found him.”
Irene held onto Cian as he charged towards the departing train. Her feet slipped and skidded across the snow melt and the tiles. Cian ran as though she weighed no more than a feather. His gaze was locked on the train.
Irene had the distinct impression that if she let go, he’d keep sprinting forward and never even notice. There was something exhilarating about it. She realized she was laughing and tried to clamp her mouth shut, but the giggles broke free anyway.
As they came around the corner of the platform, the train began to pick up speed. Cian said something that Irene didn’t catch. He hurtled forward. Irene’s legs burned as she tried to keep up. As the train let out another whistle, they came even with the caboose. Irene felt herself slip in a puddle of icy water.
Cian grabbed her upper arm. He ran two more steps, dragging her like a doll, and jumped.
Irene saw the gap between the train and the platform. She breathed a burst of clean winter air, like a knife through her brain. She felt her feet dangle in space.
And then a jolt shook her as they landed on the rear of the caboose.
They rolled once and came to a stop against the door of the train. Cian lay on his back. Irene was on top of him. Her brain replayed the jump, registered the ache in her ar
m where he had yanked her after him, and felt the open space beneath her feet. Cian gasped for breath, his cheeks as red as his hair.
It felt good to lie against him. To feel the shape of his body.
“You all right?” Cian asked. He lifted his head.
Irene stared down at him. At his lips. At his eyes, green and blue and bright. Tropical eyes that had no business in Cian Shea’s head.
She slapped him.
“What in the hell—” Cian said.
“Don’t ever talk about me like that again.”
Cian rubbed his cheek and glared. Then he gave a grudging nod.
“I’m sorry.”
Irene nodded. She would have liked to stay where she was—the sway of the caboose, transferred through Cian’s body, was giving her all sorts of ideas—but the train was picking up speed as it headed along the tracks. Wind whipped past them, tossing their hair and catching at Irene’s heavy coat. She got to her feet and held out her hand to Cian.
He let her help him up. He didn’t let go of her hand.
“Shall we?” he asked.
Irene pushed open the door and entered the caboose. It consisted of a single, open room with a desk, a pair of chairs, and two middle-aged men. One stared at Irene with his mouth open. The other had frozen in the middle of packing his pipe.
“What in the—”
“Police business,” Cian said, pushing past the men and dragging Irene behind him. “Stay here and make sure nobody else comes aboard.”
“Just wait one minute—”
But by then they had already left the caboose and entered the rear passenger car. In contrast to the freezing rush of air outside, the car was warm and smelled of wet wool and, perhaps, wet dog. Only a handful of people occupied the seats. None of them were Sam.
“Do we walk the length of the train?” Irene said.
“Nothing for it but to try.” Cian started down the car. “Stay back in case he does something stupid.”
“Or in case you do something stupid.”
Cian grinned. “Yeah. That too.”
They moved down the cars, studying the passengers, looking for Sam. After three cars, Irene’s heart began to sink. There was no sign of the young thief. Just men and women with suitcases and newspapers and, in the dining car, a ring of younger men enjoying booze they’d smuggled aboard, to the dismay of an elderly train conductor.
In the fourth passenger car, they stopped. Irene gripped a handrail as the train rattled underneath them. Outside, a thick, downy white covered the windows. Snow, her brain noted. More damned snow.
“This was stupid,” Cian said. “He’s not here. He threw the Children a false lead. We should have listened to Pearl.”
The sky had been cloudy. But no snow had been falling. The windows were choked with white. Almost like—
“Cian,” Irene said. “I think—”
Something rocked the back of the train. Metal squealed, the passenger car leaped like a startled horse, and Irene went flying. Cian caught her around the waist and held her against him. Together, they fell back against one of the seats. Screams filled the car as men and women clutched at each other.
The car settled back onto the rails. The screams faltered. Women and men grabbed at hats and at handkerchiefs.
From overhead came the soft hiss. Like a heavy rain on a tin roof.
Or.
A fat drop of metal fell onto the carpeted floor, and the smell of burning fibers filled the air. Irene shoved Cian down the car. A moment later, more liquid metal spattered the spot where they had stood. The chorus of shouts had begun again, but Irene barely heard them. She stood with Cian at the far end of the train car.
Above them, red hot lines of molten steel showed a three-sided box. With a flap and a rush, the roof of the car tore open. Cold air and the acrid stench of hot metal and something else—something that cut at the back of Irene’s tongue—rushed into the car. Giants spiders, the size of hounds, lined the opening.
“St. Patrick’s blessed shit,” Cian said.
An overweight woman surged to her feet, her face purple, her mouth open in an ululating scream. She staggered halfway down the car. The rest of the passengers were frozen in silence. One of the spiders jumped.
Cian shot it out of the air. The giant spider tumbled to the ground, its legs curling up as it rolled to a stop. The gunshot rang over the rattle of the train tracks.
The purple-faced woman’s scream continued as she raced for the door.
That was enough to set the rest of the passengers into motion. Men and women and children stampeded. The giant spiders launched themselves into the car, and some of the people dropped beneath the level of the crowd. Cian shot twice more, picking off two of the spiders before the rest of the abominations had mixed with the crowd.
Irene’s hand was a block of ice wrapped around her revolver. She stared as a pale woman with pearls around her neck disappeared like a sinking ship.
Irene wasn’t a good enough shot. She couldn’t do a single thing.
“Move,” Cian said, shoving her behind him and into the next car.
She stumbled. Everything had gone distant—feet and fingers and face. The only thing that seemed clear, winter clear, was the screams. When they entered the next car, Cian fumbled with the door, but after a moment he gave up and pushed Irene down the car. Two men in this car were already on their feet, shouting questions at Irene and Cian.
Irene stared at them. She felt the lines of the revolver’s barrel under her fingers. She felt the lint and dirt trapped at the bottom of her coat pocket. She felt her heartbeat. Steady. Steady as the train’s chug.
But all she heard were the screams. And all she saw was the pale woman with the pearls, dragged down under the sea of faces.
Cian was shouting back at the two men, and a moment later, the car began to clear. One of the men took Irene’s arm, dragging her a step or two before she came back to herself. She knocked his hand free. The man looked back at her twice, but he didn’t stop running. Within moments, the car had emptied.
Cian had his back to Irene and was staring at the door they had come through.
Waiting.
“Cian,” Irene said.
He shot her a quick look and then turned back to the door. “Damn it, he was supposed to get you out of here.”
“There are too many of them.”
“Go, Irene. You saw—” He stopped and shivered.
Irene wished she could see his face.
“How many rounds do you have left?” she asked.
It took him a moment to answer. “Four.”
“Cian.”
“Please go, Irene. Please.”
The car jumped again, as though some new force had threatened to throw the train from its tracks. Irene stumbled, caught the handrail, and held on as the train bucked against the rails.
And then she had an idea.
She grabbed Cian’s coat and pulled. “Cian, now.”
He stumbled after her. Behind them, the door flew open, and the hound-sized spiders surged through, crawling across the walls and seats and roof towards Cian and Irene. Irene ran faster, Cian on her heels. Two more gunshots rang in her ears, but she didn’t glance back to see if Cian had hit.
Of course, since it was Cian, she was fairly sure he had.
They cleared the car, and Cian slammed the door shut. The wood shivered, and one of the giant spiders threw itself against the glass pane. The glass cracked. Cian and Irene crossed to the next car, but before they entered the car, Irene dropped to her knees.
“How do they do it?” she asked.
Cian stood over her, Colt out. “What?”
“Detach the cars.”
For a moment, Cian stared down at her. Speechless.
Irene had to fight a crazed smile. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen him speechless before.
The silence was somewhat nice.
Then she turned her attention back to the car coupling. There was nothing she could grab ont
o. Not without losing a hand.
A crack came from the car they had just left.
“Irene,” Cian said.
“I’m hurrying!”
Then she saw it, on the corner of the car, a substantial piece of metal sticking out. She wrapped her hands around it and pulled.
It wouldn’t budge.
“Irene,” Cian said.
Glass shattered.
“It won’t move,” Irene said. She yanked on the pin with all her weight, but the damned piece of metal was stuck.
“Of course it won’t move,” Cian shouted. He fired a shot. “They don’t want the cars to come flying off. That’s the whole point!”
“You’re not helping!”
He swore and shot again.
Irene wrapped her hands around the pin. She risked a quick look at the car they had left.
A pair of spiders poked limbs out of the broken window, dragging themselves over the shards of glass. Cian stood with the Colt out, but he hadn’t fired.
He was waiting. He wanted to make the shots count.
God above, he only had three shots left.
The passenger car with the spiders trembled, and from further back along the train, two figures sailed into view. They flew through the air, arms and legs rigid, like carvings dropped from the sky. With a crash of metal and wood, the forms landed at the edge of the passenger car. The car tipped forward under the weight.
The train coupling shifted. Suddenly the pin had plenty of room to move.
Irene hauled on the pin. Even through the train’s vibrations, she felt the click. The coupling loosed, and the passenger car fell away, losing ground as the train continued forward.
“What in the—” Cian stared at the distant car and then at Irene. “How—”
Irene slumped onto the narrow span of metal. Her hands smelled like rust, and her heart jounced inside her head. Only the rush of cold air in her ears, howling like a storm, registered.
“Well,” Cian said. He helped her to her feet. “That was . . .” He stopped. His hands tightened over hers. “That was amazing.”
Irene wanted to say something, but before she could, a squeal of metal came from the dwindling form of the passenger cars. The car twisted and turned, the wheels tearing free of the rails, and then the row of cars came off the tracks. With a crash, the series of cars plowed into the frozen dirt.