A Shadow in the Flames (The New Aeneid Cycle)

by Michael G. Munz

  "Yeah, but he's not going to find him without us! Look, let's just go there now and find him ourselves!"

  Caitlin was shaking her head. She cursed again.

  "Gideon is going to find him," Felix continued calmly. "Diomedes is going to shoot first and ask questions later unless we get to him first."

  "Do you know where he is?" Caitlin asked, somber.

  Felix nodded quickly. Brian was backing away.

  "Fine," said the reporter. "You tell Diomedes, I'm going to get my interview."

  Felix somehow felt bound to keep Brian with him. "So you're going to just go by yourself, knock on his door and ask to talk? You think that's safe?"

  "I'll be okay," Brian replied as he turned away. Felix fought the urge to chase him down, neither able to think of a real reason why he should nor what good it would do if he did. "Don't worry!" the reporter yelled back as he jogged away. "I'll keep our promise!"

  "Bloody hell," Caitlin muttered again beside Felix.

  "If it's any consolation, I think he will that, at least," Felix told her.

  "Bugger it, he'd better. Where's your Diomedes now?"

  "Close by. We're due to meet back up shortly, actually. I'll find him before it's too late." He found himself wanting to reassure Caitlin despite his impression that she could obviously take care of herself. "I'm sorry you misunderstood me about who thought what."

  Caitlin only shook her head. "I'm going with you to talk to Diomedes. Where is he?"

  "I really don't think that's a good idea," Felix said, worried. "He's already in a bad mood. We just missed your vigilante before and—"

  "He's not my vigilante."

  "And he's not my Diomedes. My point is that he's less than jovial. I hate to say this, but Dio might hurt you just for being connected to him."

  She stared back at him. "Then we'll tell him carefully. I need to make sure he's straightened out."

  Felix considered arguing for a moment, but despite his worry he had to respect her determination. Plus, based on the stubborn defiance streaming off of her, he didn't think he'd win. Had the situation or time permitted though, he'd have enjoyed the debate. "Brian and I were supposed to meet them at a floater a few blocks away. I'll show you."

  Felix stood and Caitlin followed as he began to think of what he'd tell Diomedes and how to keep Caitlin from getting hurt.

  "Danae," she suddenly said.

  "What?"

  "I know your last name," she stated as they hurried up the street. She motioned to Felix. "Hiatt," she said, then pointed to herself. "Danae."

  Felix smiled despite his worry. "Caitlin Danae," he repeated, searching his memory. "Clws i gwrdd â chi," he tried in greeting.

  "Clws i gwrdd â chi, hefyd," Caitlin responded with a smile, not missing a beat. "You speak Welsh?"

  Felix smiled to himself. "I remember a little."

  XXIV

  Romulus woke from his haze as the floater lifted off. While technically awake for the entire time between the fight's end and lift-off, he could recall no single thought of his own in that time. Now, as the nearby buildings gave way to the gritty brilliance of the city skyline beyond, that dead calm broke with the awareness of his own shame.

  He'd been cheering, and the memory of it burned him. Why had he been cheering? One minute he was as worried for Diomedes as if his own life were being threatened, the next he was thrilling to the sight of the brutal hand-to-hand as Diomedes destroyed his opponent. Michael couldn't believe he possessed the savagery to take pleasure in such a thing. It hadn't really been him—he'd been drunk on the energy of the crowd and relieved that his mentor would be okay. The thought was a buoy he clung to in a storm of doubt. He would not be the kind of man to find sport in that brutality. He refused the possibility.

  But when the bloodlust and relief had subsided, the fight had kept going. And going. Too far. Why didn't he try to stop it then? The small man in the pit had been beaten long before the fight ended. Romulus should have done something. He should have yelled out and got them to stop it. Or had he? Guilt turned in his gut. Michael couldn't recall. It was all a haze of violence and regret. If he had yelled, he should have yelled louder. Had he yelled at all?

  He looked over at Diomedes. His former roommate piloted the floater with grim determination. Diomedes had driven his fists furiously into his opponent's limp and beaten body, ignoring Michael's own cries for a reprieve.

  Romulus should have yelled louder. He should have jumped into the pit and pulled his mentor from the man. His opponent had forced Diomedes to his fury. He had to use it to defend himself and then he got swept up in it, unable to regain himself until he saw the news footage. Diomedes was a freelancer, after all; Rat Face had provoked him. Romulus should have seen that and pulled Diomedes out of it. Guilt rushed over him again as he realized he probably would never know if the man was alive or not. It was his fault for not reacting.

  Michael looked over at Diomedes again, brooding over thoughts he would not allow to form. The cityscape sped in confusion beneath them, and everything was moving too fast. He needed time to think.

  Siren lights flashed up the approaching buildings and reflected on the insides of the cockpit. "We're here," Diomedes announced.

  Romulus pushed his thoughts to a shadowed corner of his mind and forced his concentration to the moment, looking out the window at the activity below as they descended. A police car was parked at an odd angle on the sidewalk where it separated a small gathering of people, including the news crew, from an area of darkness next to the buildings. Romulus could make out no details in the shallows, but the black floater was still there, crouched on the far side of the street just a small distance up the block.

  "He's still here," Diomedes said. "Look for him."

  Diomedes's phone rang. He didn't answer it.

  They drifted upwards again and Romulus began to scan the rooftops. The city lights were ruining his night vision. Though he tried to avoid letting his gaze fall on them, they seemed only to get brighter as time went on and pulled his focus towards the light. His mind was turning to sludge, thick with walls and barriers that would only let him look.

  Diomedes took them in a path that swept the rooftops, cruising slowly at a steady altitude while they both looked down. Despite the ambient light from the city, the shadows were many, and Romulus had to concentrate on the edges of the buildings where things were less dim, hoping he might catch a glimpse of their arsonist peering down at the scene below. They had to find him. Without that, without the money to help him rebuild. . .

  He couldn't finish the thought. Doubts of the nobility of their purpose whispered to him with Felix's voice. The floater seemed to close in around him. He adjusted his seatbelt, trying to get some relief.

  They continued to sweep the area. Diomedes moved them into a wider pattern.

  "I see something!" Romulus said.

  "Where?"

  Romulus was looking down, nearly beneath them. "On top of the last building. Someone's up there. You just passed it."

  Diomedes swung them around. There was no sign of anyone when they'd turned, but still they closed in, descending, until the floater hung over the top of the building.

  "There." No sooner had Diomedes said the word than a dark figure fled across the roof away from them. "It's him." A shaft of light split the roof down the middle, and it was clear that Diomedes was right when their man dashed through it. The floater lurched into motion, launching across the roof after him.

  The vigilante had reached the far edge of the building in an instant and jumped down. The floater overshot the edge in its momentum, and they banked around in time to see him swing himself over the top platform down to the one below. Diomedes held their position in wait as the vigilante nimbly swung and jumped down, platform by platform. It was a six-story journey, but the man was nearly to the ground already. Still Diomedes waited. The vigilante hit the ground and was off.

  Diomedes grabbed a monitor atop the console and spun it to face Romulu
s. "Watch the ground view," he ordered. "Don't lose him!"

  The screen held a wide view of the area below. Diomedes was already flying in the direction he ran, keeping a constant distance above the ground. Romulus tracked their target and called out directions, concentrating on the chase.

  On they tracked the vigilante. On he ran, twisting and turning but always, Romulus noticed, away from where his own floater was parked. He showed no sign of stopping or even hiding; he had a destination in mind. Romulus glanced ahead and guessed where it was: the vigilante was headed straight for the West Center Transit Station. Except for the large open arch of the entryway, the place was entirely below ground.

  "He's going underground, we're gonna lose him!"

  The floater plunged with a lurch that left his stomach in his ears.

  "Jesus!" Romulus cried. The ground rushed up to meet them and for a moment he lost all sight of their man as his eyes closed in reflex. He was all but thrown to the floor a second later as Diomedes stopped them just before they hit the ground. Ahead, the vigilante ran straight for the open archway in the ground floor of an approaching skyscraper.

  "Oh, God," Romulus began. He pressed himself into the back of his seat. "You're not—!"

  Shock held the rest of his protest in his throat. His mouth hung open, paralyzed, as his hands grabbed onto whatever they could and his foot stomped on an imagined brake pedal. The entrance loomed before them. Diomedes skimmed the floater even closer to the ground and plunged them inside without a word.

  Romulus cried out, reeling and out of control as Diomedes steered them to the right, avoided a wall, and flew them down a bank of escalators after the arsonist as the mercifully small number of pedestrians before them dove for cover. The ceiling, thankfully high, allowed the floater clearance down to the next level. Romulus once more tried to cry out in protest, but a sudden clang and tearing shocked him to silence again as they smashed a hanging light at the bottom of the escalators and sailed under a low archway before scraping the floor and leveling out.

  The vigilante continued to run, only a few yards ahead of them, and turned right into a wide corridor a little over half the length of a football field. Diomedes nearly didn't react in time; they careened across the width of the hall to narrowly miss smashing into a bank of ATMs.

  "What the hell are you doing?!"

  Diomedes ignored his shout. He swung them around to face the vigilante, who was still running down the bay towards a railing that marked the drop-off to the space below where the subway trains ran. Narrower platforms ran the length of the upper area where their floater's engines whined and people scattered. Escalators led down to the tracks, but their quarry headed straight for the railing.

  The floater lurched to movement once more, and they launched forward to close the distance to the railing. The vigilante looked behind at them through the tinted glass. Romulus doubted he could see through it. They were coming up fast. The engines screamed in acceleration.

  "I'm not losing him," Diomedes swore.

  Romulus tried to protest.

  The man jumped the railing.

  They didn't stop.

  Romulus yelled as the floater smashed through the railing and tipped forward to give them a full view of a receding subway train on the tracks below. Romulus was thrown back in his seat from the acceleration before he knew what was happening. Everything was a blur of chaos and motion. He was vaguely aware that the floater had somehow leveled out. When he managed to shake the shock from his senses, he realized that the lighted surfaces rushing by on either side of them were the walls of the narrow subway tunnel. They'd left the station behind and were gaining on the train ahead of them. Romulus's eyes widened when he saw the vigilante clinging to the rear.

  The floater took up nearly the entire width of the tunnel. Diomedes pitched them back and forth, trying to maneuver through the constricted space. They were faster than the train, but it had the benefit of rails; every time they got close, the wall swiped the floater knocked them back with a scrape so violent that Romulus kept expecting to ram straight into the side of the tunnel. He wanted to yell at Diomedes to stop, but they'd committed themselves. He could only hold on and try to keep his heart from pounding out of his chest. The vigilante merely clung to the train, a black silhouette against solid dingy gray. Like Romulus, there seemed to be little he could do until he was out of the tunnel.

  Even Diomedes was silent. A determined grimace of anger held his face, growing harsher with every scrape of the tunnel walls. The engines whined as they sped on. Corners closed in on them as they turned, and still the floater plunged through the tunnel, trapped and pursuing.

  And then they were out. The cement hole opened up into another station—Padelford Place near the university—brick and open to the air. A sigh of relief aborted back into Romulus's lungs in panic. The train was stopping blindly while they screamed forward; their momentum would ram them into it from behind!

  The vigilante looked back at them. Romulus cringed and braced, yet the horrible impact failed to occur. He found himself thrown sideways and for a moment felt nothing beyond the crush of his seatbelt on his chest as they slowed.

  They'd missed the train.

  Diomedes had swerved to avoid it, but barely. People stared at them from across the tracks as they coasted to a halt beside a brick wall that ran along one side of the open-air station. Prying his hands off the armrests, Romulus looked for any sign of the vigilante. There was none.

  Sirens began in the distance as Diomedes cursed.

  The floater was gone. It was either that, or Diomedes had somehow managed to disguise it as a broken-down '35 Uhatsu two-door. Felix looked around in frustration. "I don't suppose you see any invisible floaters lurking about?"

  "What?" Caitlin responded.

  "It's gone," Felix said. "They're gone." For a moment he considered the possibility that Diomedes had just gotten nervous again and taken off, but last time he did that he'd left Flynn to wait, too.

  "Well," the Welshwoman demanded, "where did they go?"

  "I don't know." Felix pulled out his phone with a grimace. "But Dio's not one to leave me behind unless he thinks he doesn't need me anymore." He dialed as Caitlin waited and scanned the sky. "Don't worry, they couldn't have gotten far. I'm almost certain that they didn't leave The Arena for a little bit after Brian and I." Of course, they were in a floater while he and Caitlin were on foot. Felix decided not to mention that.

  "You're calling him?"

  Felix nodded as it rang. And rang. Felix hung up. "He's not answering."

  Caitlin scowled and cast about. "What about the other bloke?"

  "If Flynn has a phone, I don't know the number."

  "Then what," she asked, turning back to him, "do you propose we do?"

  Felix glanced up at the empty sky and began to think aloud. "Like I said, Dio wouldn't have left unless he didn't think he needed me anymore. So he either found Gideon, or he thinks he knows where he is. If it turns out he's wrong, I'm sure I'll be getting a call."

  "But that's not the option we need to worry for."

  "Right. If he's not wrong—"

  "If he's not wrong then he might wind up at the flat I just told you about," Caitlin finished for him.

  "It's our best bet," Felix agreed. "C'mon, we can get a cab on Fifteenth."

  Caitlin grabbed his arm when he turned to go. She released the touch quickly as he stopped and Felix found himself wishing it had lingered.

  "Wait," she said. "I can't go with you. I don't want to run the risk of having it look like I led you there. It's one thing if he suspects The Scry, quite another if he is certain. I'm already playing with fire as it is."

  "I'll find him," Felix told her.

  "What's your number?" she asked quickly. Felix must have paused just a bit too long as she continued, "You're not the only one with resources, Felix. If I can find out where they are, I'll call you."

  Felix agreed. "I'll do the same if I find him first. But don't The Scry ha
ve my number somewhere?"

  "More polite this way," she said with a small smile. "And I prefer the direct approach."

  They exchanged numbers. Felix found himself wishing she could have come with him, and for one shocking moment he actually couldn't think of a thing to say. Caitlin looked back at him with an urgent gaze that reminded him he needed to hurry.

  "Good luck," she spoke in Welsh.

  "Hawddamor," he returned.

  He rushed into the night, alone, with Caitlin's face not the least of the things on his mind.

  XXV

  Their flight out of Padelford Place was nearly as harried as their flight into it, though almost certainly less dangerous. Once again, Romulus sat in silence as Diomedes launched them away from the closing sirens. It had seemed that they escaped before any vehicles made visual contact with them, a fact for which Romulus was very glad.

  They fled quickly from the station. Their only objective just then seemed to be just getting away from the place. Even so, Romulus could read the frustration in Diomedes's face and was sure he was keeping an eye out for their man. Now that the adrenaline had withdrawn from his own system, Romulus kept his mouth shut. Diomedes was visibly steaming.

  They took a winding path through the streets, skimming behind buildings and heading for the university campus. A small wooded area among the buildings hid an outdoor theater with its tall pines, and it was there that they landed, hidden in the shadows on the grass.

  As the sirens faded in the distance, they stepped out. Diomedes began to take some supplies from the floater as Romulus looked at the trees. It struck him how much of a difference they made; they had the power to block out the rest of the city and shield them from the chaos. Most of the trees on the farm had been barely beyond twenty feet tall, much shorter and sparser than the tall evergreens, but somehow he felt at home and at peace here among them.

  Diomedes stepped from the floater with a grey equipment bag slung over his shoulder. With only a determined look, he ordered Romulus to follow.