by Sean Platt
“They’re almost here.”
“RUN!”
Reptars swarmed. Shuttles buzzed like angry bees above them. Cameron, Andreus, Coffey, and maybe half of the soldiers arrived, breathless, into their futile cluster. Titans marched from above and behind, pinning them in. Motorcycles purred then stalled.
They turned to go, found themselves facing teeth and strong arms.
Then the Apex detonated behind them as the shuttle in its gut blew like a bomb.
CHAPTER 84
Piper spun toward the sound of an explosion in the city’s interior. She didn’t see it happen. She was near the RV, shielded from the Heaven’s Veil skyline by a cluster of trees. By the time she sprang around them and looked toward the sound, she couldn’t place what had changed. Then she gasped. The Apex, which had become the city’s iconic middle, was gone.
“They did it.”
Charlie came up beside Piper, his face more annoyed than victorious. “They were supposed to overload it.”
“I guess it overloaded too far.”
Piper didn’t flinch. She looked toward Clara, no longer reluctant to ask the small girl questions she couldn’t possibly answer. Lila had gripped her hand hard enough to bleach the skin, but the girl showed no signs of complaint.
“Are they okay, Clara?”
Clara nodded.
“They did it. They did what you said.”
“They just weakened it.”
“Then what blew it up?”
Christopher was holding Lila around the shoulders, trying to seem calm and definitely failing. His eyes were giant marbles. As were everyone’s in the group, except for Clara’s. “Was it Thor’s Hammer? Is it over?”
Clara shook her head. “No. Mr. Cameron knows where that is now, though. And he has the key.”
“Where is it? Where is Thor’s Hammer?”
“It’s at Mr. Benjamin’s favorite. The place they love, from when Mr. Cameron was little.”
“Where, Clara?”
But Clara yawned, unimpressed by it all. “I’m sleepy.”
“Where?” Lila demanded, a bit too rough.
“I don’t know the place name. He does.”
“Cameron does.”
“At least Cameron.” Before Piper could ask what that meant, the girl went on. “It’s a mountain. In a faraway place, across the ocean.”
And Charlie, hearing this, said, “Super. I guess we’ll grab a rowboat.”
Lila squatted in front of Clara, her manner urgent as if she’d just remembered something. “Clara, honey? You said earlier that they were trying to turn on a ‘spotlight.’ The Astrals, I mean. Is that over? Did they stop it?”
Charlie looked down at Lila then to Piper, who was watching him back. He asked, “What spotlight?”
“To help them find the chest without our help,” Clara answered. “So they don’t have to keep following us.”
Or let us live so they can see where we go, Piper thought.
“But Cameron and the others stopped it. They stopped the Astrals from turning on their spotlight and finding the … the chest.” Lila’s eyes went to Christopher. Piper saw an unspoken message flit between them: Or from doing whatever other insidious things might have been afoot for as long as the Apex stood.
Lila looked toward the city, toward the absent Apex and its missing glow, toward the landing area it was no longer projecting, the signal it was no longer sending through its antenna. No matter what happened next — if Cameron and the rest made it out of Heaven’s Veil or not, at least that much had been done. And with prodding, even though she claimed not to know the name of the place she saw inside Cameron’s mind, Clara could find the mountain that had once been Cameron and Benjamin’s favorite, across the uncrossable sea. So all was as well as it could be, considering.
“They stopped it for a while,” Clara said.
“Because of the other Apexes,” Charlie said. “I told you this was a fool’s errand. They can just do to the others what they were doing with this one. We sure can’t destroy them all.”
But Clara was pointing at the city. At the hovering motherships, which even in the daylight Piper could see were now starting to glow.
“The don’t need to turn on the spotlight,” Clara said, “if they can make the chest call out for them to hear it.”
Lila was still stooping, her skin now paper white. “Clara, honey? What does that mean?”
Clara was still pointing at the glowing motherships.
“We should pack,” she said.
CHAPTER 85
Cameron tried to stand, but something heavy was on him. His peripheral vision displayed nothing but bodies. Something had blown up. He could barely hear. Sounds were muted, ringing like a distant alarm. Astral bodies surrounded him to complement the humans: all of them equal in the reaper’s eyes.
“Get off of me,” he said to the person who’d been blown into him. He remembered a feeling like a concussion. Someone had seemed to tackle him. Then, a split second later, something had blown.
He blinked. His head hurt. The inability to hear was disorienting. He could see people rising, or running. Malcolm Jons and Terrence were ahead, but it hurt Cameron to lift his neck and look. He should be dead. Most of the bodies around him, save the few getting up and crawling away, had been sliced and diced by blue glass … or whatever it was the Apex had belched out when it went down swinging.
The Apex is gone.
The fact was only vaguely interesting. Cameron knew he’d been trying to undermine it somehow, but the notion that the Apex would have come equipped with a handy self-destruct mechanism had seemed pretty damn convenient. He’d distinctly thought that when he’d been running from Heather and Raj, failing them like he’d failed his father, Trevor, and everyone else. Today had been every man for himself, and Cameron had been no exception. You fled or died. The only catch was the guilt that followed survival.
Cameron turned his head, vacantly aware that someone was yelling at him. Maybe Jeanine Coffey. He remembered seeing her get up a few seconds ago and head toward Terrence, or maybe not. He looked up. It was Coffey, all right, but something was wrong with her. She seemed to be shouting, but barely any sound was leaving her lips. It was funny. He thought about laughing.
Coffey turned and vanished — somewhere out of his line of sight. Cameron couldn’t see her, but he seemed to feel her. And it hurt too much to turn his head. Though slowly, his hearing was leaking back. Not much. Mostly, he still heard the whine of that distant alarm — real or in his ears, he hadn’t a clue. A teapot’s whistle, now mingling with the slightest of shouts.
(Hurry!)
He sensed the word more than heard it. From Police Chief Jons, who looked like he might have taken a hunk of shrapnel to his arm. Red gunk was dripping down his meaty limb, drizzling from his fingers.
Above him, still very faint, Jeanine Coffey said, “Get up. We have to go.”
And indeed they did. More shuttles were coming. Cameron could see them. More Titans and Reptars spilled from between the buildings, from somewhere behind the smoking pile of debris and rock that was once the pyramid.
The last of the weight left Cameron’s back. He wasn’t dead. He might not even be cut. His head was clearing, the situation’s weight and reality settling on him like a lead cloak.
Coffey helped Cameron to his knees then pulled him to his feet. His satchel had been slung around his back. Coffey pulled it forward, feeling around inside. The key must still have been whole because she visibly relaxed then took the satchel for herself. Still too quiet amid all the ringing, she said, “He squeezed it between you. It’s safe.”
“Who?” Cameron’s voice sounded odd to his ears.
As Coffey dragged him forward, Cameron looked back and saw Nathan’s motionless body.
CHAPTER 86
There had been a ticking sound before the Apex had blown. Nathan must have heard it and intuited its meaning because he’d dived for Cameron’s back, toward the key, and what migh
t be the planet’s most important object. Jeanine had heard it too. But instead of leaping to protect her general, she’d ducked. She’d covered. She’d shoved her fingers in her ears. And when the dust had cleared, she’d remained mostly whole, with merely a glancing cut across one shoulder.
It’s for the best. Everything happens for a reason.
She’d once believed such things. Grandma had said them when things went awry and when Jeanine had been a teenage girl with problems that had seemed so dire at the time, she’d tried hard to accept Grandma’s words. It had worked, to an extent. But it wasn’t working now. And yet it had to because Nathan was dead regardless. They were fucked up the butt, and the stone key for Thor’s Hammer — wherever that might be — was only safe for as long as they refused to mourn and kept running.
Jeanine told herself that she’d looked out for number one because someone needed to lead this group the hell out of … well … out of Hell. Nathan was gone, and the police chief, large though he was, was already flagging. Cameron was dazed, but he’d been weak since he’d watched his father die. It was Jeanine or nobody. And maybe that, in the end, made her saving herself commendable.
But only if she didn’t dawdle. Only if she did what needed doing, without hesitation.
The demolished Apex was like a hive of furious hornets. The shuttle had blown its roof off, but it was either an upward-only blast, or the stone floors in the temple below were sturdier than she’d have thought. Looking back as she pulled Cameron toward Jons and Terrence, Jeanine felt as if they must have been spawned down there — as if the Apex, not the motherships, was where Astrals were born.
They boiled out in waves. There were no Titans. Only Reptars.
They came fast. She couldn’t just take the key and run; Cameron’s brain, if anything, held Thor’s Hammer’s location. He had to survive — another reason, perhaps, that Nathan had given him a second back when the Apex had blown. Now it was Jeanine’s job to get him out.
But they were too quick. They came. She moved, but not enough.
Before Jeanine could think to curl up with Cameron and wait to die — there wasn’t enough time to give him the satchel back and die for him — there was a hot thump and a sizzle. She felt a hot draft and looked up to see the shuttle from earlier incinerating Reptars in a sweeping wave, firing a solid beam into the pyramid’s remains. A scent like cooking pork assaulted her nostrils.
The shuttle seemed to spin; it was hard to tell given its uniform shape. It lanced out with another beam. The building past Terrence, Jons, and the few remaining soldiers blew backward, crumbling to rubble. There were more Titans beyond, each one already most of its way to Reptar. Another beam, and they were gone.
“What’s it doing?” Jons asked, aghast, his voice audible but muffled in her ringing ears.
It was a stupid question. Help was help. The first shuttle had brought down the Apex, and this one had fried their pursuers. It didn’t matter what or why. It only mattered that the way, for a while at least, was clear.
Jeanine ran as fast as Cameron could go. She left the others. They didn’t matter, and Cameron was slowly returning, his eyes clearing, injuries — if he had any — far from mortal.
A block later, she saw Terrence and Jons. Several of Nathan’s summoned soldiers were on her other side, running for their own lives as much as anyone else’s.
The shuttle followed. Others came up behind it and fired, Astral to Astral. The lead shuttle seemed to anticipate the blow; it veered to one side and plowed through a building that was either an apartment or a business. It returned fire, but the shuttle merely bounced when struck, undamaged. Then the shuttle in the rear — now joined by three others — fired on the first. The friendly shuttle bounced like a ping-pong ball between blasts then zoomed straight up and was gone. The others pursued, energy beams lancing the newly vacant sky.
They were on their own.
Jeanine dove down, catching her breath and allowing Cameron to catch his. Jons fell into line beside them, alone. Terrence and the others were gone. She looked back. There were no obvious bodies, but it seemed more likely that they’d caught spare fire than deciding to go somewhere better.
“We have to look for them,” Cameron said, his voice still balled in cotton. “They may be trapped.”
“They’re dead!”
“You don’t know that!”
Jeanine started forward. Cameron pulled her in the opposite direction, straining.
It was maddening. The gate was ahead, practically within sight. The lead shuttle had blown them a path; the gate was as gone as the Apex. They could make it.
Except for the shuttles.
Which, she suddenly realized as Cameron pulled against her, had vanished from the sky. It should have been a relief. Instead, it felt ominous.
Jeanine looked up. The shuttles were gone. Every single one. And there were no more Astrals active on the ground. She, Jons, and Cameron had a straight shot. She could even see some of the shuttles retreating, climbing into the motherships’ bellies above.
“We have to go back for them!” Cameron shouted, leaning against her with all of his weight.
But Jeanine was still looking up. At the four motherships. And the way they were glowing.
Her eyes flashed toward Cameron. All at once, she surrendered to his pull. She dove with him, keeping hold but letting his momentum hurl him to the ground in a crash.
When he recovered, Jeanine pulled him upright and hit him hard in the throat. Then she handed Cameron to Captain Jons, who tossed him over a shoulder. Then they ran from the city before it killed them.
CHAPTER 87
Lila wasn’t sure whether she should look down at her daughter, who seemed unimpressed by all that was happening, or the two people she could now see running from the city across the parched open sprawl that the Astrals had cleared when Vail’s land had been razed for Heaven’s streets to be built.
The people were an odd pair. There was a thin, athletic-looking woman with brown hair and a bald, enormous black man who looked to be made only of muscle. The latter, who had to be Police Chief Jons, was carrying a third person: a stirring form that was probably Cameron Bannister. Or so thought Piper, who kept trying to run forward only to be rebuffed by Charlie and Christopher.
Clara was watching it all. Observing the pair approach with no obvious concern for their safety, or surprise to see them. She was watching the four motherships, which were doing something that spanned all four: a kind of glowing, shared cloud of energy gathered and sparked between them. Lila had no idea what might be happening, but she had an excellent guess that it wasn’t good. And yet Clara didn’t flinch.
“Clara, honey, let’s go inside.”
“Going inside won’t help, Mommy.”
Lila thought it would help plenty. Judging by what had just happened with the Apex, it seemed likely that the motherships were about to blow up some human shit of their own: the police station, a few apartments, whatever it took to keep everyone in line. Maybe her father would turn on the Astrals when he discovered everyone gone, but even if he did they’d find someone willing to subdue a voluntarily conquered populace. Hell, Raj would be fantastic for that job.
Explosions were better under cover. And this particular interior had wheels and an engine. Lila wondered if the Astrals would let them go, but they were sort of hidden back here. They could stick to the trees. Maybe run on foot once farther away, like they’d done all those years ago.
Still, Lila couldn’t help but feel a tug. The viceroy’s office would survive, and her father was still a chosen one — not just one of nine who’d gone above the ships and returned as media gods, but known by the entire planet. He’d be fine. But she didn’t want to leave him behind.
“Come on,” Lila told her. “Let’s play a game.”
Clara gave her a look that said, Are you kidding me? and Lila let it go.
The new members of their party arrived. Jons offloaded his cargo, which did, in fact, turn out to be a
n extremely irate Cameron Bannister. But his anger evaporated when he saw Piper, and they embraced — as friends, not lovers. Lila, who had her suspicions especially after having her own dalliances, took comfort in seeing it.
Clara was watching her.
“Do you miss him?” she asked. “I miss him, Mommy.”
“We’ll see him again,” Lila lied. Although she realized, as she said it, that she had no idea who Clara was talking about.
Cameron disengaged from Piper and squatted in front of Clara. It was strange, the way the man and the girl who should by all rights still be in diapers faced one another as equals.
“I know where it is,” he said.
Clara nodded.
“But there’s no way to get there.”
All heads turned from Cameron as the ships glowed and the energy beneath them began to accumulate. Clara was right: going inside wouldn’t make any difference at all.
“What are they doing?” Cameron asked no one in particular.
Clara, still at his side, said, “They’re going to make the chest scream loud enough to find it.”
CHAPTER 88
“Get inside.”
Christopher looked up, already used to the idea of taking orders from Cameron again after the years lost between them. The old gang was back, if you ignored the truth that it was just the two of them left. No Vincent, Dan, or Terrence. Just Cameron and Chris, investigating Meyer Dempsey on Benjamin’s orders … except that Benjamin, of course, was also gone.
But it wasn’t Cameron issuing orders, rushing around the RV and pushing each of the small group inside, taking no shit of any kind while motherships powered up behind them. It wasn’t even Charlie (who might have made sense as Benjamin’s successor) or Jeanine Coffey (who was military-seeming enough to pull it off). It was Piper. But she wasn’t the meek flower she’d once been. Her eyes were hard; she seemed, in Christopher’s uninformed opinion, to have a bigger clue about what was happening than anyone other than Clara.