Rowan frowned and looked up. She tugged the strand again, heard the chime.
She pointed her flashlight upward. But it couldn't pierce the shadows. Rowan tightened her lips, grabbed the strand, and began to climb.
She climbed through the darkness for what seemed like ages. Finally her flashlight illuminated a burrow dug into a stone wall.
A cave.
Rowan climbed inside, leaving the forest of webs below.
This had once been a small bunker. Probably dating back to pre-Hydrian days, the ancient era before humanity's exile. Somebody had converted it into a child's bedroom. There was a small bed, the wooden frame rotting, the mattress black with mold. A decaying desk. Dolls and stuffed animals on shelves.
The strand Rowan had climbed clung to a desk. When she tugged the strand, the desk jerked, and Rowan heard the chime again. It came from an ancient music box, rattling on the tabletop. The box creaked open. As if to welcome Rowan, a porcelain ballerina emerged. Music began to play, an eerie reverie.
Rowan still heard the battle far below. She wanted to go and fight. To save Bay. To save her friends. But the hanging things had led her to this bunker. There was something she needed to find. A weapon to slay the beast?
She approached the desk and opened the drawer. Small spiders fled from within. Rowan cleared away cobwebs and found a leather-bound journal. Rowan blew off dust, revealing letters printed on the cover.
Emily's diary.
Rowan flipped the book's brittle pages. She began to read.
Dear Diary,
The others were taken today. The last of them. I'm so scared. Mama said I needed to hide here. To never make a sound. She went to look for food, but the snakes found her. Mama, I miss you. I hear them at night. Laughing. Hurting the others. Changing them. I'm scared they'll come for me next. That they'll hurt me. Change me into a monster. Mama, I love you.
Old tears stained the page, smudging the last few words. Rowan's heart broke, and she had to close the diary, not wanting to add her own tears.
A photograph slipped out from the diary. A photograph of a family. A father, a mother, two brothers, and a little girl.
The girl who grew from the spider's body. But here she was still human. Still little Emily.
No, there was no weapon here, Rowan realized. There were memories.
She stuffed the diary and photograph into her pocket. She climbed out of the bunker, back into the dungeon of webs.
The spider queen rose ahead, her back to Rowan. She hung from her web. Little Emily, a merchant of death.
Dead soldiers hung around her, deboned, swinging from the sticky strands. A few soldiers still lived. They cried out, some still fighting, others trying to flee, only to be caught in the web. Bay was hanging from the net, one hand free, lashing a blade.
The spider approached him, claws raised. Her jaws opened wide, revealing strands of flesh. Bloody bones clung to her armor, new trophies. Bay cried out, swinging his blade, desperate to hold her off. Lawless hung in the web beside him; the rifle was beyond his reach.
"Bay Ben-Ari," the spider hissed, clattering closer. "My mistress told me of your wretchedness. The Little Prince. The lesser son of great ancestry. The last scion of a dying dynasty." She cackled. "Your bones will have no special place upon my armor. Your memory, like the memory of humanity, will be forgotten."
The spider grabbed his wrist, yanking his knife free.
Rowan stepped forth, gun lowered but chin held high.
"Emily!" she called out. "Emily Anderson of 42 Willowdale Road!"
The spider froze.
The creature stood still, claws raised above Bay, centimeters away from cutting him open. The little girl, growing from the bloated spider body, seemed paralyzed.
"Emily," Rowan said, softer this time. "I found your room. Your diary."
Slowly, spine creaking, the girl turned around. Her gray lips peeled back, revealing rotten teeth.
"Rowan Emery …" the creature hissed, clattering forward. "I know you. Yours is the flesh of my mistress, the Queen of Serpents. Yours is the blood of the poet, which will soon flow down my gullet."
The spider let out a deafening shriek and pounced toward Rowan.
But Rowan refused to back down.
She raised the photograph.
"This is you!" Rowan cried. "See yourself, Emily! This is you with your family!"
The spider stopped in midair as if hitting an invisible wall. She fell backward, legs scampering, and screeched.
"Put it away!" the spider cried. "It hurts us. It lies. Burn it!"
Rowan took a step forward, photograph held before her. She read from the diary.
"Dear diary. Today I hugged my parents so tightly. I love my mom and dad more than anything. Maybe even more than Christine, my porcelain ballerina. I'm scared of the snakes. But so long as mom and dad are here to hug me, I'm safe. I know they can banish any monsters. And I promise to protect Christine."
"Be silent!" the spider cried, scurrying backward. "You lie, you lie! You trick! Burn it. Burn it away!"
"Do you remember Christine, Emily?" Rowan said. "Do you remember your mom and dad? You're still you. Deep inside. You're still Emily. They can't take that away." Tears gathered in Rowan's eyes. "I can help you. I can bring you back."
Rowan didn't know if that was true. But she had to believe. That there was a home for Emily among humanity, same as the starlings had found a home on Earth.
Emily stared at her, frozen. Tears flowed down the cracked gray cheeks.
"It's too late for me," Emily whispered, sounding like a girl again.
Rowan's own tears flowed. "I can save you. I have to believe. That I can bring you back. That I can bring this city back. That I can bring Earth back. That there is hope for you. For all of us."
Because I too am broken, Rowan thought. My body is whole. But my soul fractured into ten thousand pieces. Every death that I saw. Every life that I took. It's another shard inside me. I have to believe that I can come back, be the girl I once was. I have to believe we can all come back from the darkness.
Emily lowered her head, sobbing softly.
"I miss my mom and dad," she whispered. "I miss Christine. Are they dead?"
Rowan stepped closer. She reached up and placed a hand on the girl's arm. "I'm sorry, Emily. I lost my parents too. But you have me."
The girl took back her diary and photograph. She climbed her web, moving on her many legs. She squeezed into the bunker, her bloated abdomen barely fitting. Rowan followed silently. The spider paused for a moment, looking at the porcelain ballerina in her music box. The music played, a soft chime, and Christine danced. Then Emily climbed onto the bed, hiding the entire mattress beneath her girth. Her eight legs pulled together.
"I can see them," Emily whispered. "My mom and dad. I can see the owl. He wants me to follow him. He'll take me to my parents. He'll take me home."
Emily began to wrap herself with webs, cocooning her deformed body. Rowan stood at the back of the room, watching. For the first time, Rowan noticed that a birdcage hung from the ceiling. A few feathers at the bottom. Owl feathers.
Bay climbed into the bunker too. He came to stand by Rowan, panting and bleeding.
"What—" he began.
"This is her path," Rowan whispered. "The one she chose. The owl will take her home." She wiped her eyes. "It was her pet. And it's still looking out for her."
Emily completed wrapping herself in the strands. The cocoon stiffened, seemed to shrink, deflate. Though freshly woven, the casing seemed oddly ancient, a relic from the past like the rest of this room.
Bay raised his minicom above the cocoon, scanning it. He looked at Rowan.
"No signs of life," he said. "She's dead."
Rowan lowered her head. "Or she found another life. One of peace."
"Should we bury her?" Bay said.
"She is buried, Bay. She is."
A voice called from below—one of their soldiers.
"Colonel Emery! Colonel Ben-Ari!
We found something."
Leaving the cocoon, they returned to the dungeon. They cut their way through the cobwebs, heading deeper underground. The soldier kept calling them from farther down. Bay and Rowan followed his voice past the forest of cobwebs, finally reaching a doorway. They stepped into a dingy lab.
The soldiers pointed their flashlights across the room. The beams illuminated grimy glass pods, each about the size of fridge. Fleshy cords connected to the pods, pumping liquids from vats. The vessels looked like artificial wombs.
Rowan approached one of the pods. They seemed made of glass, but were coated with filth. Rowan wiped grime away, then jumped back.
A face.
A face was staring at her from inside the pod. A human face.
"Jesus," Bay muttered, coming to stand beside her.
The face belonged to a middle-aged man, the skin pale, the eyes glassy. Rowan struggled to open the pod. There seemed to be a hatch, but it was bolted shut. She rummaged around the lab, found a pipe, and hit the pod again and again. Finally she broke the hinges, and the pod's hatch swung open. The man spilled out onto the floor.
Bay knelt by the pale figure. He looked up at Rowan and shook his head.
"He's dead, Row."
They moved to another pod, wiped off the grime, and revealed another face. They cracked this pod open too, but found only a corpse. They tested several more pods, but the people inside were all dead.
"Damn it." Rowan pointed. "The vats were built to supply the pods with nutrients. But judging by all the grime, nobody's been tending to this lab for ages. This looks like a generator, but it's dead. It must have run for a while after Xerka fled Earth. These people haven't been dead for long. The generator must have died just recently."
Bay frowned. "What is this place? What were the basilisks doing here?"
"Harvesting DNA," Rowan said. "This must be their reservoir. Their source of cells to design the creatures we saw above." She shuddered. "And maybe the trees in Central Park."
Bay shuddered too. "You still think New York is just an experiment? A giant lab to understand humanity?"
"I don't know." Rowan sighed. "I wish we could have gotten here earlier. Maybe saved some of these people."
Bay cursed and punched a wall. "So we found the hostages. And we were too late. Ra damn it." His eyes reddened. "All this. All these battles. This death. And we're too damn late. The hostages are dead."
A sound came from behind them.
A pattering on glass.
Bay and Rowan glanced at each other, then turned and ran. They reached a pod at the back of the room, hidden behind curtains of cobwebs and dust. The pattering came from within. Rowan swung her pipe, cracking the pod open.
She gasped.
She took a step back.
"How?" she whispered, trembling.
She and Bay stared. Other soldiers gathered around them, staring in awed silence.
Inside the pod, naked and hooked to fleshy cords like a baby in a womb, was Rowan.
CHAPTER FIVE
The soldiers stood together, flashlights pointing at the naked woman in the pod.
At Rowan.
This was not one of the freaks from the museum above. Not a hybrid. Not deformed. The young woman was a perfect replica. The same petite body. The same olive-toned skin, short brown hair, and almond-shaped eyes.
"A clone," Rowan whispered, peering at her naked doppelganger. "A perfect clone."
Inside the pod, the clone whimpered. She covered her eyes with her arms.
"Lower your flashlights, everyone!" Bay said. "Give her some space."
The soldiers stepped back, lowering their flashlights. Only Rowan remained by the pod. Her clone trembled inside the glass egg. Tubes were still attached to her body, fleshy and coiling, running toward vats of liquid.
Rowan spoke softly. "I'm here to help. I'm going to cut you free, all right?"
The clone cowered and began to cry.
Rowan's mind raced. For a disorienting moment, she wondered who the real Rowan was: the officer in uniform, scarred and bloodied, or this virginal being in the pod, naked and babbling.
But of course she was real. She—Colonel Rowan Emery. She had her memories. Her thoughts. Her personality. She could feel them inside her, as if they resided in her skull.
Yet still—that confusion. The sense that she was only an illusion. A ghost.
She forced that doubt aside, saving it for future contemplation. For now, she had a frightened clone to tend to.
They must have grown her from my DNA, Rowan thought. Xerka must have captured my DNA when I battled her aboard her ship. Just a drop of blood or strand of hair would be enough. She made this clone. A perfect clone. The source. From her, the basilisks grew the creatures above.
Rowan drew her knife and sawed through the tubes connecting her clone to the pod. The clone came free, crying and trembling, like a baby being born. Rowan wrapped the girl in a blanket. She held her, rocking her in her arms, until the clone calmed and slept.
"What is she?" Bay said softly.
Rowan looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "A survivor."
They climbed back onto the surface of New York City—the last handful of living soldiers. Bay carried the clone in his arms.
They stepped back into Times Square and looked around them. The sun was rising, and it was snowing. Not snowing the ashes and smog of war. But pure, glittering snow that covered the bones, hid the lurid adverts, hid the ugliness and rot. In this dawn, for one glittering morning, New York was beautiful again.
It was the city from the poster above Mairead's pool table.
The city Rowan had watched in so many movies—as familiar to her as the ducts of Paradise Lost.
It was a city where no monsters dwelled, and where nothing could hurt her.
The platoon stood around Rowan. She had come here with over a hundred tanks. With over a thousand troops. So few remained. Only a few dozen survivors.
We cleaned this city, she thought, looking at them. But at a terrible cost.
Engines rumbled above. Rowan looked up to see Human Defense Force planes. Paratroopers glided down with the snow. The soldiers landed in Times Square and atop the buildings, rifles in hand. Hundreds of new soldiers.
One tall, broad soldier approached Rowan. He pulled back a scarf, revealing a craggy face with a gold-and-silver beard. A face like an aging lion.
"Rowan!" said Emet Ben-Ari. The president of Earth himself. "Bay! Thank Ra. Are you two all right?"
"Dad." Bay approached his father, and his voice was haunted, hollow.
Brow furrowed, Emet looked at them. At the bloodied, wounded platoon. At the naked clone in Bay's arms. Confusion suffused his face.
"We lost contact with you hours ago," Emet said. "None of our transmissions were getting through. I know you didn't want paratroopers, Rowan. I know you said this was a job for an armored battalion. Well, it looks like you cleaned up this city. But … damn it. What the hell happened here?"
Bay looked down at the clone in his arms. The young woman was sleeping, still wrapped in her blanket. The snow clung to her short brown hair.
Bay looked at Rowan. She saw the horrors dancing in his eyes. The same horrors that still haunted Rowan. That she knew would forever haunt them both. The massacre on the river, the leviathans grabbing the tanks and pulling them into the depths. The naked boy, exploding among the troops, and the carnage raining. The twisted forest with fingers for leaves, and the pit of snakes. The Theater of the Absurd. The dark dreams within.
Bay looked back at his father.
"A nightmare," he said softly. "We found a nightmare."
Yes, Rowan thought. Not a test. Not a web. This city had been like her dreams. Dark and coiling, with many paths and mysteries. The kind of dream you woke up from in cold sweat, tangled in the blankets, clawing for a way out. The kind of dream even the light of dawn could not fully banish.
Because only nightmares can teach you about your fears, Rowan thought.
Only through a nightmare can you reach dawn with new understanding, with new courage. Nightmares are how we confront our demons. And that is what I had to do in New York. I had to confront not only the basilisks. But my demons. The shades of myself. She laughed, a sound almost like a sob. Yes. I had to face myself.
"A nightmare?" Emet said, frown deepening. "What do you mean? Somebody give me a proper report, damn it." He turned toward Rowan. "Colonel Emery, what happened here?"
A tear flowed down her cheek. She smiled at her president. She spoke softly.
"We woke up."
CHAPTER SIX
The Terranon was the greatest building in Port Addison. Indeed, the greatest building humans had built in thousands of years.
Well, it would be. Eventually. It was still a work in progress.
Very much so.
Rowan stood on the snowy lawn, watching the construction. Workers bustled across scaffoldings, laboring even in the bitter cold. Their power drills, welding guns, and hammers filled the city with their song. Normally Rowan would have thought it a cacophony. But today it seemed a good sound. Comforting. Almost harmonious. After so many years of war—of hearing bullets and bombs and missiles, that symphony of destruction—it felt good to hear men build.
She was also suffering from partial hearing loss, the result of her many battles, which even the Harmonians couldn't repair. There was that too.
Bay trudged across the snowy field and joined her.
"It's a little excessive, isn't it?" he said.
"Excessive?" Rowan said.
They both looked at the Terranon. The central structure was almost complete—a concrete rotunda, not yet painted but already regal. Earth's government would convene within that dome. Other wings were still under construction. There would be living quarters for the president, a library, and administrative halls. Elsewhere in the city, crews were building a courthouse, a police station, and new headquarters for the Human Defense Force. Slowly, Earth's halls of power were rising.
"Yeah, excessive." Wind gusted, and Bay shivered, brushed snow from his beard, and wrapped his blue coat more tightly around him. "Within only the past six months, two million human refugees have landed on Earth. Two million, Row! Hungry. Cold. Traumatized from years of war. That brings our population to a cool three million. And two million more refugees—the last humans in the galaxy—are expected to land within the next year."
The Legacy of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 6) Page 6