“Listen to her,” Lucas breathed, sounding very proud.
Charlee grimaced. “I learned a lot from Eira.”
“I don’t think you learned it all from her,” Asher said. He looked at Lucas. “Charlee has had a varied and deep education. It shows in unusual ways.”
“Tell me about it,” Lucas agreed with feeling. “So, what would you suggest Asher do tomorrow?” he asked her.
Charlee looked at Asher and lifted her brow.
He nodded. “Tell me what you think.”
She took another mouthful of the mead, giving herself a few seconds to consider. “I think you should be at the north foot at noon tomorrow. But not just you. I think anyone who can walk should be there. No children, but the more adult humans, the better.”
“More witnesses,” Asher guessed.
“It’s a pity the world isn’t hooked into television waves anymore, or I would suggest that Koslov’s TV studio be fired up.”
Lucas sat up from the slump he had fallen into. “Shit on a stick,” he said. “Someone has a TV studio up and running?”
“They think they can run it, if they have power,” Asher said. “Why?”
“The fighters that went through the shield in London—remember the footage, Asher?”
“What of it?”
“They analyzed the spine out of that footage, along with every monitor, meter and scale the fighters carried and they were loaded up with everything they could carry, so it took a while. I remember the Rear Admiral bitching about the final analysis. He said that the only radio waves that came through the shield while the fighters were inside it was anything between one hundred and fifty megahertz and about two hundred and seventy five. Which was useless, as nobody was set to receive that frequency anymore, except maybe in Australia.”
“Australia?” Charlee asked.
“One of the last countries in the world to adopt cable for television,” Asher said absently, staring at Lucas. “They’re still mostly using broadcast bands. Television will get through the shield?” he said, speaking to Lucas.
“If the studio broadcasts at that specific megahertz range, and if a power source can be found or invented to drive it, then possibly. If the guy who says he can run it isn’t full of smelly brown stuff.”
“That’s a lot of if’s,” Charlee pointed out. “We know light can travel through the shield and certain sound frequencies, but nothing within human hearing range. Nothing physical can get through.”
“What advantage does pushing TV frequencies through give you?” Lucas asked, and this time he was looking at Charlee.
Charlee looked at Asher. “I said get everyone to the north foot tomorrow, as witnesses. Television will give us the entire world as witnesses. Human technology—the Alfar have always had trouble with it. Let’s use that to our advantage. We can talk to the rest of the world and they won’t know it.”
* * * * *
There was no sleep for any of them that night.
Charlee loaded up a backpack of food and supplies for Lucas, and he shrugged into it and glanced at his watch. “Seven p.m. This is going to be close.”
“You’re a ruggedly fit SEAL,” she reminded him.
“Who has been eating squirrel droppings for three years, and he’s getting old into the bargain.” He kissed her cheek. “Be careful, ‘kay?”
“Always,” she assured him.
“Make sure the big guy doesn’t do anything stupid, too.”
“I’ll try. But it’s Asher.”
“Yeah.” Lucas grinned at her. “I’ll see you there. Noon tomorrow.” He hitched the backpack into a more comfortable position.
“Fudge!” Charlee called.
Fudge trotted over to her.
“Go with Lucas,” she told him.
Fudge looked at Lucas, who held out his hand. “You’re sure about this?” he asked, for the third or thirtieth time.
Fudge licked his fingers and seated himself at Lucas’ side.
“Apparently Fudge is,” Charlee said.
“Okay, then,” Lucas said with a heavy sigh. “On point, Fudge,” he told the dog, who moved out ahead of him. Lucas waved to Charlee and stepped out, too. He was going to look for Koslov in the places Koslov had said he could be found, and go from there.
An hour later, Charlee and Asher were ready to go. They had always kept themselves ready to ship out at a moment’s notice, so the preparations they had to put into place did not take more than twenty minutes, but there was one last thing Charlee needed to do before they could leave.
She found Asher in the small workshop where he repaired and built everything, including their weapons. He had worked furiously up until Lucas had been ready to leave, and inside Lucas’ backpack had been the portable transformer Asher had built, that could convert the energy of the auras to direct current and then into alternating current, for human technology. Bits of wire and mysterious pieces of metal littered the bench.
Charlee took the screwdriver from Asher’s hand and turned him to face her. He gazed at her, his blue eyes in the low light looking darker than usual.
She kissed him. “One last time,” she murmured.
Asher drew her to him. “There will be others,” he assured her, his lips against her throat, his hands sliding over her body in the way he had that made her shiver and throb with impatience.
“No, there won’t,” she whispered. “Not here. We’ve run out of time.”
He didn’t dispute her.
* * * * *
They came from across the shielded city. Some were drawn by the leaflet alone, wanting to witness their fate first-hand. Others had heard rumors, in the wind, on the breeze, muttered and passed on from one human to another, using every communications device they had discovered or reinvented since the occupation, including old dial telephones, and Morse code sent by flickering light. But mostly, word passed from mouth to mouth.
As Charlee and Asher traveled north toward Harlem, Torger by their side, others materialized around them, emerging from rubble, from cellars and the occasional untouched building. They emerged in greater numbers from train stations. Their numbers built the closer they got to the base. People moved silently through the night, walking, rolling or hobbling as they needed to. Everyone carried possessions on their back or over their shoulders. Clothes were dirty, torn, and worn.
But this was not a mob. There was a single-minded purpose driving them all northwards, and while they rarely spoke, when they did there was a grave courtesy used. The idea that they might be marching toward their deaths pervaded the atmosphere, and made most issues seem petty and not worth wasting what little time they had left.
Once the train tracks moved from under the earth to the surface, then to the overhead platforms, the stream of humanity flowed beneath them.
It was well past midnight when they drew level with the south end of the northernmost foot. The south end of the foot was the blunt end. Silently, the river of people bent around the corner and followed the monstrous foot toward the north point, which ended in Harlem.
Sometime during that unending night, Charlee reached out and grasped Asher’s hand, careless of the fact that she was holding his sword hand. He didn’t seem to mind. He kept quiet, his face hidden behind the deep hood, his gaze on his feet. Once, he drew their linked hands to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand.
Charlee was glad of the dark, for it hid her face from him. She kept her chin down, tucked between the upturned collar of the coat that she wore for the same reason Asher did—to help disguise who she was, and to carry her weapons discreetly. The bow was too long, and she had left it behind in the warren. But her long knives were hanging from under each arm, within easy reach. There were other blades and weapons scattered about her. Asher carried even more, simply because he had more pockets and most of his weapons unfurled, like his sword, the last vestige of auras that the Kine had continued to use.
Charlee thought of the time they’d had together and tried to be conte
nt. It had been stolen time. If peace still reigned, if the auras had not been opened, if the Alfar had not descended, that time would never have happened. She might be bonded to Roar by now, her unhappiness cemented in place by a contract and the rigid rules of the Kine that had preserved them throughout history.
Things change, she told herself. Things always change.
* * * * *
They reached the northernmost tip of the north foot mid-morning. The day had dawned with grey overhead and a small breeze that smelled of rain. The chill gave Charlee and Asher a good excuse to huddle inside their coats, their heads down, as they made their way closer to the tip of the triangular foot.
They were not the first there. Humans had been gathering for hours. The northernmost section of the shield cut through Englewood in New Jersey and the north end of the Bronx, before curving to slice through Forrest Hills and southeast Brooklyn, then out across mid-New Jersey on the west. Humans in the northern quadrant had a shorter journey to make.
The area in front of the tip of the foot was not level, nor was it very clear. There were the same bulldozed mounds of rubble up against the base of the foot, and most of the buildings in the immediate vicinity had been squashed by the initial concussion when the foot had landed. There were not many buildings still standing with their middles sliced through the way the southwestern foot had left them.
People sat on top of rubble, after carefully clearing a space. Others cleared out road surface or sidewalks. There were more people who had climbed to the roofs of the nearest buildings, which were thirty yards away. Most of the buildings in the area were only two or three floors high. Some people found windows with a clear view, inside the buildings.
Asher picked out a building on the far side of the point from where they had arrived. “There,” he said. “We’ll find space on the roof.”
They made their way along, following the hundreds of rivulets of people passing between those who had already settled. Many people were sleeping, secure in the knowledge that the Alfar would not touch them until the noon deadline.
The stairs in the building Asher had selected had collapsed, leaving the mid-point landing thrusting out into mid-air, a long gap below to the cellar. It was a thirty-foot drop, and the landing was fifteen feet away from where the last of the solid floor ended. “No wonder there are so few on the roof,” Charlee said. “Fire escape?”
They went around to the side of the building. The strap for pulling down the lower level of the fire escape had broken off. The ladder hung twelve feet above, out of reach.
Asher threaded his fingers together and bent down. “I’ll hoist you.”
Charlee knew he was more than strong enough, so she settled her foot on his fingers and her hand on his shoulder to steady her balance.
“One, two, three…!” She pushed off with her other foot as Asher lifted her, fast and high, and reached for the small section of leather strap that remained hanging from the lip of the ladder. She curled her fingers around it and hung for a moment from one arm, wincing at the strain in her shoulder.
Her weight was more than the counter-balance, and the ladder slowly dropped to the ground. Asher grabbed the first step, and Charlee let go of the strap thankfully. He leapt on to the lower steps and gave the short whistle for Torger to go ahead. Torger scrambled with his short legs and hauled himself up onto the top step, then climbed the iron stairs, panting heavily. Asher pulled her up onto the steps and they climbed swiftly to the roof, three floors up.
There was only a handful of people already on the roof and they huddled against the wall of the stairwell, which protected them from the breeze.
Asher kept his hood up and strode over to the corner closest to the tower and stood looking out. “This will do,” he told Charlee when she stepped up to his side.
She looked over the sea of people below, for there were no more whole buildings between this one and the tower. The rubble and the street were almost completely covered by humans sitting and lying, waiting for noon, while others walked carefully between them. The flow of humans between those who were already settled made Charlee think of blood flowing through veins and capillaries.
It was a silent scene. No one was speaking above a murmur. No one was enjoying themselves. Tiredness and dwindling hope seemed to hover over them like a miasmic, invisible cloud.
Overhead, the clouds rumbled warningly.
Asher looked up. “How fitting,” he said.
They sat down to wait, their backs against the low parapet. Torger pressed against Charlee’s arm, a warm half-wall protecting her against the breeze.
After a while, Charlee pulled food from her backpack, and they ate and drank slowly. She realized that Asher was studying her with more than the usual closeness. “What’s on your mind?” she asked. “Have you decided what to do?”
Asher shook his head. “There’s too many variables. I’ll have to make decisions on the fly and probably change my mind as often as I make it up.”
“You mean, you’re going to go by your gut?” She laughed. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
Asher smiled. “I usually left the heavy strategy stuff up to Roar, or Eira.” He glanced toward the tower and sighed, his smile fading. “I don’t know where Eira is. It’s up to me, now.”
Charlee glanced toward the tower, too. “Do you really think they have Roar?” she asked him. “I mean, are the Alfar capable of bluffing?”
Asher pursed his lips for a second. “They have him,” he decided. “There’s no possible way they could pull this off if they don’t. If they didn’t have him, they would never have thought of trying to pretend they did, just to reach me. It’s like stories—they just don’t understand fiction.”
“But they can lie, can’t they?”
“They will distort the truth, but they can’t fabricate a story to save their lives. So yes, I think they really do have Roar.” He reached over and picked up her hand. “Do you want to know what’s on my mind, Charlotte Rose?”
His fingers were stroking her palm, making her skin tingle. “You mean, beyond the obvious?” she asked.
Asher smiled, but it was small and faded quickly.
“Tell me,” Charlee said.
Contrariwise, he fell silent, staring down at their hands.
Charlee gripped his hand with her free one. “It’s alright,” she assured him. “You don’t have to say anything.”
His jaw rippled. “Yes, I do have to say it. In Norway, when I was still human, it was understood that when men went away to war, they might not come back. It was important to settle up debts, to mend rivalries and solve any bitterness. No tears, but no regrets, because it had all been said and nothing was left undone.”
“You’re not going away to war,” Charlee whispered.
“I have no idea what is going to happen in the next few hours.” His voice was as quiet as hers.
“But you’re already at war and I’m right here.”
It was his hand over hers that halted her, this time. He looked at her very steadily. “But not everything between us has been said.”
Charlee swallowed. Her heart was aching. She didn’t want to do this. To say everything was a way of acknowledging Asher could die soon. To wind everything up into a completed package, tied with a neat bow…it was giving up. But instinctively, she knew that Asher needed to do this. It would let him get through the next few hours, no matter what occurred.
“What haven’t you said?” she asked.
He was back to studying her hand. For Asher, with his ancient upbringing, speaking of what was in his mind and heart, speaking of emotions, came harder than for some.
“Do you remember the day we met?” he asked.
Charlee couldn’t help smiling. “Of course. You were my own personal superhero. You rescued Chocolate. How could I ever forget that?”
Asher’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “Superhero. I remember when you first called me that to my face. It shocked the hell out of me.” He
glanced at her. “It took me days to realize that I liked being thought of as a superhero, especially by you.”
“I hate to let you down, Asher,” she said gravely, “but I haven’t thought of you in that way for years and years.”
“Not since our first argument, I’m guessing.”
She laughed. “That certainly cracked your pedestal for me.” She stroked his fingers with her thumb. “In many ways you’re a man just like every other human, only more so. I don’t notice your Einherjar qualities nearly as much as I used to.”
“Especially not the last few years.”
“No, barely at all since the occupation.”
Asher’s gaze dropped down to her hands again. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how close I was to the end, when I met you.”
“The end?” Charlee’s heart gave a hard little knock.
He shrugged, making it look casual, but she knew, suddenly, that this was terribly difficult for him to speak of. “Ending it. One way or another. Drink seemed like a viable option. But there were other, quicker ways, and in the years before I met you, I had been toying with them.” His blue eyes flickered up to her face, to check what her reaction was to such a confession.
Charlee schooled her face into neutral lines, hiding her shock. “I figured out, after a few years, that your life wasn’t a bed of roses. But I didn’t know you were so…desperate.”
“I wasn’t desperate. I was bored. I have been alive for over fifteen hundred years, Charlee. I can’t begin to explain to you how draining that can be. After a while, everything repeats itself. After a few centuries, nothing humans do surprises you anymore. After five centuries, anything even remotely novel becomes your whole life’s focus. But staying human, pretending this was our first time experiencing anything—that made it harder. I waited, hoping for something to come along that would give me a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, because protecting humans from a threat that was less real than a fairy story had long ago lost all meaning.”
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 69