White-hot flames erupt all around us, the heat singeing my hair.
There’s just enough time to grab Vienne and get out. I reach down, grab her by the shoulder pads, and drag her toward the doorway. Behind us, the blaze has climbed the wall and flames are roiling across the ceiling like boiling orange water.
Archibald screams. I look back to see him standing in the middle of the conflagration, arms spread wide, head turned to the left, chin tucked in. Flames dance up and down his pants, and his cloak is a blanket of fire.
He turns toward me, clutching a jagged piece of glass. “Diiiieee!”
A visceral growl comes from behind me, sending shivers down my spine.
“Vienne?”
She vaults past me and lands in front of Archibald. He raises his flaming arms, and she hammers his jaw with her fist.
“My love,” Archie says, holding his face.
“No!” She nails him with a scissor kick, and he flies backward against the wall, engulfed in light like an incandescent comet. His screams are a siren, the air filling with the fetid odor of his searing flesh.
Then, Archibald is dead quiet.
Gagging from the stench, I rush for her, but she growls when I get close. Her eyes are wild, blood flecked on her face, her teeth bared.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say calmly, focused on the grenade. “I—”
“Cowboy!” Mimi yells. “Get out of here!”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
“The exit!”
Maybe she does.
But the exit is blocked by the display Archie knocked over. I give the case a hard shake, but it’s too heavy to move with one arm. “Verflucht!”
Suddenly, there’s a hand on my shoulder and one on my opposite leg, and I’m lifted like a rag doll and thrown through the shop’s display window. It shatters as I hit it, and I land hard on the marble floor outside in a pile of safety glass.
“Mimi, what hit me?”
“You have to ask?”
Head spinning, I look up in time to see Vienne hurdle past me and shoot like a Varlamov rocket straight across the lobby.
The sprinklers turn on. Now it’s raining inside, too.
“Vienne threw me through the window?”
“Which saved all our lives,” Mimi says.
I collect my fallen armalite and shove it into its holster. “Remind me to thank her when my spine grows back.” Okay, enough yak. “What’s her last heading?”
“Your twelve. Straight ahead.”
I start jogging, which causes my head to hammer. I can’t hear a thing over the splatter of the sprinklers. “I know what my twelve means, Mimi.”
“Just making sure. You could have sustained a concussion in the fall.”
“I landed on my butt.”
“Exactly.”
“Ha-carking-ha.”
Through the lobby’s panoramic window, I see a killer view of downtown, which is awash with black water and debris that the flood has grabbed along the way. A bank building across the Circus is on fire, and the fire has ignited an oil slick on the surface of the water.
It’s as if Christchurch has fallen into an angry ocean, an ocean that wants to eat us all.
“‘There the companions of his fall, o’rewhelm’,’” Mimi says. “‘With Floods and Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.’”
“Thank you, Mrs. Milton.”
“Excellent,” Mimi says. “You should run now.”
Ka-boom!
Outside, another explosion.
“Gas leaks,” Mimi says.
“What?”
“You were going to ask what is causing all the explosion. Gas leaks from the mains. The flood must have destroyed the lines.”
“Thanks for the chemistry lesson, Madame Curie.” My eye catches a movement near the emergency exit. I skid to a stop and change directions. “But I’m worried about drowning!”
“Vienne!” I slam the door open. Water is in the stairwell and rising. Footsteps on the landings above. She’s running scared.
“Vienne! Stop!”
Up three flights. My legs burn. I keep running.
Keep her in front of you. There’s no way out except down.
Boom! From the roof, another explosion.
The building shakes from the aftershock, and my wet boot slips on the stair tread. My knee slams the concrete, and the armor solidifies.
“Esena mori poutana! Piece of crap! Mimi! Fix it!”
“Endeavoring. Give me a second.”
“We don’t have a second! She’s too fast.”
Boom! Another explosion! The whole stairwell shakes, and concrete dust pours down on me.
“Vienne!”
Nothing, then a growl. A door slams open. I’m gaining on her. I run up the steps, taking two at a time, as chunks of concrete fly past. At the next landing, I pause to check the door. The metal is hot. “This one?”
“No. Fire on that floor.”
Next landing. The thirteenth floor. The stairs stop one floor above at the access hatch to the roof.
“It’s either here or the roof,” I say. The roof hatch is still latched, so she didn’t go that way.
“Excellent observation,” Mimi says. “Maybe you have not forgotten everything I taught you.”
I unholster my armalite and yank the door open. Sprinkler water sprays me in the face and thick, acrid smoke pours from the hallway. I step back into the stairwell. Locate the sprinkler junction and turn the wheel to shut it down.
“Mimi, didn’t Archie say he burned the boardroom first?”
“The fire should be out by now.”
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the floor is littered with burned-out debris. It’s an all-too-familiar scene. Even dead, Archie is leaving his mark. “Any readings?”
“Only faint ones. Keep your voice down. You don’t want to startle her.”
“Or let her know I’m coming.”
“That, too.”
I steal forward down the hall. Check every office, every room. Nothing. Where could she be? “Anything?”
“Signal is stronger. Stay on this heading.”
Around the next corner. The walls are black and puckered from a hot fire. This area looks familiar. Then I recognize an empty, charred frame on the far wall.
The boardroom.
Boom!
I hear the sound of windows popping. Is the whole world going to hell?
“Pretty much,” Mimi says.
The lights flicker and go out.
Great. It’s dark, and I have no omnoculars for night vision.
Wait!
Voices.
I move to the doorframe. Get eyes on the interior of the room and slip inside.
Vienne!
She’s lying on the floor in a patch of seared carpet. Again in the fetal position, rocking to and fro.
“I failed you when you left to become a Regulator. I failed you when I let you be captured. I will not fail you this time.”
That voice.
Stain.
He steps out of the shadows, carrying a smoke-covered mirror. He props it on a chair in front of Vienne’s face and forces her to look. “See what you’ve become?”
I slide along the wall so that I can see him clearly. His pants are drenched and coated with wet ash, one hand holding his staff like a scepter. The other perched on the pouch that holds his bees. I flick the safety on my armalite. Move into firing position.
“You shot a child,” he says as Vienne turns her head away. He yanks it back. “This is the face of a killer.” He reaches for his bee pouch. “There is only one way to make you whole again.”
I step into view. My laser sight dances on his chest, right above his heart. “The only hole is going to be one I put in you.”
He pulls Vienne up, using her as a human shield. The red laser dot is over her heart instead of his. “You’ll have to kill her first.”
I hesitate.
Stain presses the staff again
st Vienne’s neck, and she cries out. He screams, “Be still!”
“Mimi, why doesn’t she fight back?” I try to get a clear shot, but the smoky air, the darkness, and his quickness stop me. “Kick his ass, Vienne!”
An angry hum fills the room. The scorched carpet begins to undulate, and I realize that Vienne isn’t lying in a pile of ash—she is covered with bees.
“There is your answer, cowboy.”
“Stain,” I say, “you are one sick bastard.”
“You can’t fight the bees,” Stain says, smug in their ability. “Throw down your weapon, dalit.”
“She’s your sister!” I say, trying to stay calm, trying to get the shot. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means everything to me!” he bellows. “Do not presume to understand me! You know nothing about me!”
“Oh, I know lots about you, killer.”
“On your knees!” He jams the staff into the wounds on Vienne’s neck, and she screams.
There’s no choice. I drop to the floor. Click the safety on my armalite and toss it toward him. He lets Vienne slide to the floor.
“Hands behind your head!” he says. “Isn’t that the way Regulators take prisoners?”
I comply, crossing my wrists, so that my fingers touch my cast and brush the two needles embedded in it. The needles. “You mean hostages.”
“Prisoners! That’s what the righteous do with criminals. Bring them to justice and then bring justice upon them!”
Methodically, I work one of the needles free from the cast, careful not to prick my skin.
“Slowly, cowboy,” Mimi says. “One false move and you’re dead.”
“Dead is not on my agenda.” I say aloud, “Stain, listen to me, just let Vienne go and we’ll settle this between us. She’s committed no crime.”
There! The needle’s free. I pinch it between my thumb and index finger.
“Good,” Mimi says. “Keep him talking, cowboy.”
“She murdered! She stole!” Stain twists Vienne’s hair. “She took the sacrifice I made and threw it in my face!”
“That’s not the way I heard it from Riki-Tiki.”
“Liar! All lies! That’s all you know how to do!”
The bees stir in response to his shouts. Vienne looks up, her face fragile, not wild. Please, I pray, let there be some Regulator left inside. For a second our eyes meet. We hang there together, connected over space. And—
She looks down.
Damn.
“I was bönpo!” he screams, bits of foam flying from his mouth. “I was the chosen one who would lead the Tengu the way that Master Rinpoche led the first monks to Mars. But I sacrificed it all so that this, this heifer could live, but no, she threw it all away! If I’d known she would waste her life on a dalit Regulator, I would’ve let our father take her!”
Vienne looks up. Our eyes lock like a laser sight.
“I would’ve let him violate her again,” he continues, “so that she would know the pain of betrayal! I should have known! I—”
“Should’ve shut the hell up while you had the chance. Now!”
Vienne rams her elbow at his crotch. He blocks her, as I fire the needle at him. With insane ease, Stain stops it with an open palm.
The needles stick into his flesh. Laughing, he raises his palm to show it to me. “Calluses, dalit.”
“Neurotoxins. Asshole.”
Stain looks at his hand as if it belongs to someone else. Then his eyes roll back in his head. He stumbles and slams the staff on the floor to steady himself. With a sudden surge of air, the bees rush to Stain. They cover his body with theirs, forming a living cocoon.
Down! I shout to myself. Sliding across the waterlogged carpet, I snatch my armalite from the floor and fire a three-round burst into the cocoon.
Behind Stain, the windows shatter. The staff hits the floor, and the bees scatter, swarming into the night air.
“Maybe we’re dalit scum,” I say, pointing my gun at him, “but at least we stick together.”
Stain staggers backward to the window. His butt hits the sill. And he sits. His head lolls to the side, and his feet rise off the floor. He presses a hand to his belly, and his eyes fill with utter disbelief.
He looks at his palm.
It’s covered in red.
“Blood,” he says and starts to teeter.
Vienne snatches his wrist. “Stain!”
He grabs Vienne’s arm with both hands and falls back, pulling her with him.
I drop the gun. Leap forward. Grab her ankle.
Hold on for dear life.
“Not this time!” I wedge my feet on the wall and pull. “Let go of her!”
Boom!
The building quivers, and we slide farther out to the very lip of the ledge.
Below us, rapids have swept through the concrete canyons of the city, pulverizing everything out of their path.
There’s nothing but water as far as the eye can see.
“Let go of Vienne!” I yell again. “Or so help me, I’ll shoot you in the face!”
Stain laughs. With a last effort, he grabs Vienne’s shoulder. Her leg begins to slip from my hand. Where are those carking hairs when I need them?
“We die together, sister!”
“No!” I paw the ground with my broken arm. Grab the armalite. Bring the barrel up and with a shaking hand, pull the trigger.
Stain’s mouth widens. He lets out a scream as his hands slide from Vienne’s arm, and the sudden release throws us both back into the room.
Outside, there’s nothing, except the sound of a splash.
Vienne leans over the sill. She gazes into the churning current. I stand next to her. There’s no sign of Stain. Two bullets and neurotoxin—he’s as good as dead.
“Once upon a time, I jumped out this window,” Vienne says in a quiet voice.
“Yes,” I say as I catch my breath. “I reckon you did.”
“A very long time ago. Before the bad man came. When I was someone else.”
I shake my head. “The bad man is gone now. You don’t have to worry about him.”
“I killed Stain?” she asks, like a child trying to piece a puzzle together.
“No. This was his fault.”
Her voice chokes. “I killed that little girl.” A tear rolls down her cheek.
How do I argue with that? I take her hand in mine. It is cold. The fingernails are broken. The knuckles are skinned raw.
“But I was someone else then.” She looks at me, her blue eyes clouded with pink. “Will I ever be me again?”
“You’re still Vienne. You never stopped being Vienne.”
“I’m tired,” she says. “I want . . . I want to go home.”
She shivers, clutching her thin arms to her chest. My heart sinks at the sight of her burned neck, dirty skin, and swollen face. She looks like hell. She’s been through hell. All I can do is wrap her in my arms.
Her arms drop listlessly at her sides, and in her eyes I see nothing—no anger, no fear, just a blank slate, a pond with no ripples on the surface.
“Come on, Vienne.” I gently lead her by the arm. “I’ve got you now.”
“Oh, cowboy,” Mimi says. “What she has endured.”
“It will be okay,” I tell her, and tell myself as well, hoping it’s true. “The monks will know what to do.”
Carefully, I guide Vienne back to the fire exit. We climb the stairs to the ladder that leads to the roof. I throw the bolt, push open the hatch, and pull her up.
The rain has stopped, and a light wind blows her hair.
In the pink hue of dawn, all I can see is the river. Houses, trucks, roofs, debris, the artifacts of a shattered city bob in the current. Near the Seven Bridges, the current forms what looks like a white foam whirlpool, and the sky is clotted with viscous, acrid smoke. The air is still, the city remarkably quiet. We’re stuck on a roof, and there’s no way to make it out of here.
This is where it all ends.
“It does not,” Mimi says. “Don’t be such a melodramatist.”
“There’s no such word as ‘melodramatist.’”
“No, cowboy, I am being serious,” she says. “Look up.”
Tychon’s aerofoil drifts overhead, then banks into a shallow dive.
I stick out my thumb.
“Going my way?” he calls over the PA.
I give him a double thumbs-up.
He circles again. The hatch opens, and a gear bag falls onto the far side of the roof. I jog over to retrieve it. Inside, I find a carbon fiber cable, a harness, and a self-inflating balloon.
“That looks like a Fulton Recovery System kit,” Mimi says.
“That’s because it is.”
I strap on the safety harness, clip the cable to the harness and the balloon, then let the balloon inflate. It rises into the sky as Tychon takes the aerofoil in a wide arch. He’s bearing down on the roof when I pull Vienne tight against my chest.
“Hold on, soldier. We’re going for a ride.”
Above us, two horns on the nose of the aerofoil grab the cable, and with a jolt no harder than a kick in the pants, we’re lifted off the roof, rising high above Christchurch. Below us, the city is a smoldering ruin, but above us, there’s only sun.
Chapter 30
Tengu Monastery, Noctis Labyrinthus
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 29. 22:22
The aerofoil soars low over the arch outside the Tengu Monastery. It lands on the road to the west of the gate, and I climb out of the cargo bay.
“Thanks for the ride,” I tell Tychon.
“Anytime.” He lifts Vienne from the bay and passes her down to me.
She has been asleep since Tychon hoisted us into the bay, and I wrapped her in a thermal blanket from his first-aid kit, then held her the whole way home.
“Good luck,” he says and tips his cap.
When we are clear, he cranks up the engines and begins to taxi down the road.
Vienne doesn’t stir when I carry her down the path to the gate. Her head rests in the crook of my neck, her shallow breath warm against my skin.
She’s home. It’s what she wanted. I must give her to the monks because they are the only ones who can help her heal. But what if doing that means I never see her again? “I can’t leave her here, Mimi.”
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