Neither of us say a word, and Evan shakes his head.
“Look. I think the demon that Clay was chasing escaped here,” he says, pointing to the first rift, “or rather, I think he let it escape. I also think Clay went to the Abyss through this one.”
He moves his finger to the first portal of the two portals where Clay had stopped.
“And he came back through this one,” Kateri says, pointing to the other one.
“If you’re right about this…son-of-a-bitch.”
“When you sent Clay and Wren out—”
“Wait. I didn’t send them out,” he says, putting his hand up and interrupting Kateri. “I dispatched Wren, but Clay called to say he was already there.”
“He was already there,” I say. “He was meeting the demons, and I think she saw him.”
“Shit. Wren!”
I pull my phone and hit the speed dial for Father as the door slides open. Kateri and I run down the corridor to the elevator. Father answers on the second ring.
“Eve? What is it?”
“Get some people up to the infirmary, now!”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Clay’s the fuckin’ traitor!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Come on!” Kateri yells inside the elevator.
We’re both standing at the door, waiting for them to open, weapons in hand. Terrible images keep flashing inside my head as the slow-as-shit lift takes its sweet-ass time getting to the third floor. Finally, we stop, and the doors slip open. We race down the corridor toward the infirmary. My heart is pummeling the inside of my chest when we reach the entrance. We bust through the swinging doors and an entire team of Shayds turn toward us, their weapons at the ready. Reeva and Jax are in front, looks of fierce determination on their faces.
“Is she okay?” I ask, desperation in my voice.
“She’s fine,” Reeva replies. “Is Clay really the traitor?”
“It looks like it.”
“Did you see him?” Kateri asks, walking over to one of the windows and peering outside.
“No. He never even came up here,” Jax answers.
“Where the hell did he go?”
“Evan,” I say, touching my earpiece. “Where is he?”
“He’s outside!” Kateri yells.
Reeva and Jax take off for the elevator. I follow after them but stop when I hear breaking glass. Kateri climbs up into the opening and leaps, fading into the shadows just before reaching the ground.
“I’m tracking him,” Evan finally replies.
“Get a fix on his phone!” I yell before jumping out the window after Kateri.
I dissolve into the shadows just inches from the ground and then materialize on my feet. I take off running after Kateri and Clay.
“Signals gone dead,” Evan says through my earpiece.
I can still see them ahead of me, just across the street. I barrel my way through a hole in the old chain-link fence, scratching my arm in the process.
“Well, figure something out. He’s gonna fade any second and we’ll lose him!”
It’s getting dark, and a lot of the available shadows are intertwined with the impending darkness. I think about using them to chase after him, but it’s too dangerous. As I’m crossing the street, I spot Kateri running back toward me.
“I lost him,” she says, and I can feel the anger in her thoughts.
“Crap! Evan? You got anything?”
“Give me a second,” he replies.
“We don’t have a second!”
Kateri and I walk back to the Factory, slipping through the fence just as Reeva, Jax and Syrra emerge from the building.
“Well,” Syrra asks.
“He got away. He faded before I could catch him,” Kateri replies.
“Fuck!” she says, voicing how we all feel.
“Come on. We have to talk to Father,” I say, leading everyone back inside.
“Are you sure about this?” Father asks as he paces back and forth behind his desk.
I look at the others and then back at him.
“We’re pretty sure,” I reply. “I don’t want to believe it, but looking at Evan and Wren’s discoveries about the rifts and Clay’s location.”
“Plus, he ran,” Kateri adds.
“People run for different reasons sometimes,” my mother says, from the other side of the room. “Sometimes they’re scared.”
“Most of the time, they’re guilty,” Kateri shoots back.
I’m about to speak when Wren walks in, or rather hobbles in holding her side, a bandage wrapped around her left arm.
“He’s the one,” she says, her voice shaky but full of conviction.
“Wren!” I take her other hand and help her to one of the chairs. “What are you doing up?”
She looks up at me and smiles grimly.
“I’m okay,” she replies.
“Do the doctors know you left?”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?”
“What is it with you guys and sneaking out of the hospital?” Syrra asks.
I look at Father and he shakes head.
“You need to go back to the infirmary,” he says before touching his earpiece.
“I need to tell you something,” she says, her eyes opening and closing slowly.
“After you’re better,” Father says.
“No! Now!” she shouts, pushing herself up.
I can tell that even the little outburst has drained her even further as she struggles to stand. Taking her arm, I help her steady herself. Everyone is looking at her, their expressions a mixture of worry and shock.
“He’s the one,” she says. “I saw him. He was talking to three demons when I got there, and he took off with one of them.”
“Leaving you to die,” I say, frowning.
She nods slowly.
“He was talking to them?” Father asks.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I watched them from a distance for a few minutes,” she says, sitting back down in her chair, “and then one of them spotted me.”
“And that’s when he ran?” Kateri asks.
“Yes.”
I look over at Father.
“Is that enough?” I ask.
He frowns and slowly nods his head.
“Good. Now we have to go after him,” Kateri says.
“Yeah, but we have no idea where he is,” Reeva says from the other side of the room where she’s standing with Jax and Syrra.
“I might be able to help with that,” Evan interjects as he walks into the already overcrowded office.
He makes his way behind Father’s desk.
“May I?” he asks.
“Do what you need to do.”
He punches some keys and, a few seconds later, an overhead image of the city appears on the screens. He pulls down a menu and makes a couple of selections.
“What is it, Evan? We don’t have a lot of time,” Kateri says.
“Sorry…um…anyway, I’m able to track everyone’s phones, triangulating their positions using the closest cell towers,” he says.
“He’s already dumped his phone,” Reeva says.
“Yes, he has,” he replies, looking up at her, “but he still has his earpiece on.”
“And you can track that?” I ask.
“Sort of.”
“Evan, just please get to the point,” Father says placing his hand on his shoulder.
He nods and swallows.
“I figured out a way to bounce a signal off the earpiece by hijacking the cell phones of other users in the area. Every Bluetooth device has a particular signature, so all I had to do was search for his.”
“You hacked all the cell phones in the Pittsburgh area?”
“Um...” he says nervously as he looks around the room. “Yeah.”
“So, where is he?” I ask.
“Right here,” Evan says, and a bright dot appears a little south of Green
sburg in a housing development in New Stanton.
“You sure about this?” Reeva asks.
“It’s the best shot we’ve got,” he replies.
“Go,” Father says. “Find him.”
I nod and Kateri and I move to the door, followed by Reeva, Jax, and Syrra. I look back at Wren, and I can tell she wants to go, but we both know she can’t. I give her a little nod of the head.
“Get him,” she says, nodding in return, her voice shaking slightly.
“We will.”
“Bring him back alive,” Father adds just before we reach the stairs.
“No promises,” Kateri mutters under her breath.
Kateri and I jog through the situation room and into the cafeteria when Evan comes running up behind us.
“Hold on, Eve!” he calls out.
We stop to give him a chance to catch up.
“You forgot these,” he says, handing me two small walkie-talkie like devices.
Each one is about the size of a pack of cigarettes with rounded edges and a single button of the right side. Two mesh like screens take up the front of the unit, one above the other.
“Just press the button and talk,” he says.
“And they’ll work between the Abyss and here?” I ask.
“I think so. I mean, they haven’t been tested yet, but they should.”
“Thanks Evan,” I reply. “Now find out where that asshole is.”
He nods at both of us.
“Okay. Be careful.”
We both nod in return before turning and heading to the exit. The others are waiting just outside the door.
“Ready?” I ask.
Everyone just nods, their silence a clear sign that they’re all focused on our task.
“Let’s go.”
We all start streaming at the same time, using the enormous shadow of the Factory as a starting point. I leap from rooftop to fire escape to balcony trying to maintain my speed and height. I can’t see the others, but I can feel their thoughts as they stream nearby.
“Where is he, Evan?” I ask.
“Everyone, turn right. He’s in New Stanton, near the State Trooper barracks,” comes the reply through my earpiece.
“Got it,” I hear Kateri reply.
The others answer in turn and I descend slowly, from roof to tractor trailer and finally onto the ground. I merge into the thin power-line shadow running along a side road that I know leads to New Stanton. I love “line-skating,” as I’ve been calling it in my own head, as I zip across the landscape. A red minivan with a mom and her infant is moving parallel to me on the twisting, two-lane road.
“Evan. Anything?” I ask.
“He’s stationary.”
“He hasn’t moved?” I hear Kateri ask.
“No.”
“He may have dropped his earpiece,” Reeva says.
“It could be a trap,” Syrra adds, and I start to worry that we’re heading into an ambush.
“Syrra. Start to turn south,” Evan says.
“On it.”
“Reeva. You and Jax stay on that track.”
“Affirmative.”
“Kateri—”
“I’ve got it,” she replies without taking any direction.
Just ahead, I can see a bridge that crosses over a larger roadway. A sign for a State Police barracks sits back a bit from the edge of the road in the middle of a freshly cut field of grass. I stream across the bridge along the power-line shadows.
“How far now?” I ask.
“You’re close. Down to the next intersection and turn right,” Evan replies.
There a large tree-covered hill that rises to my right. It looks like a tangled mess of low-growing shrubs and saplings, but I don’t think Clay would be expecting someone to come from this direction. I turn aside from the road and stream into the twisted and haphazard shadows of the woods. I flit from tree to tree, making my way to the top of the hill.
“Reeva. Turn left and then straight on,” Evan says. “Kateri—”
“I got it,” she says again, cutting him off.
“Where are you going Eve?”
“Up and over.”
“Okay…you might want to be careful about—”
Suddenly, the ground ends and I’m falling in the bright sunshine of the Solas.
I only have two seconds until I hit the ground. My eyes flit back and forth, searching for any bit of shadow. There, I see it; a small shadow cast by a single tree that stretches out to the house directly below me.
Reaching out, my fingertips touch it just feet from the rooftop. As soon as I hit the dark patch, I fade and try to link across the street, but fail miserably. I hit the shingles harder than I want to, knocking the air out of my lungs. I start to slide down the steeply sloped roof, my fingers grasping at anything they can. My boots hit the gutter and I stop.
For a few seconds I just lay there, catching my breath.
“Guys. A portal just opened next to him,” Evan says.
“Shit!”
“I’m almost there,” Kateri says.
“Us too,” Reeva replies.
“Eve?”
“Yeah…me too,” I say, looking down at the wooden deck at least ten feet below me.
I’m corporeal again, and there are no nearby shadows. I shimmy further down until I’m hanging from the gutter by my fingertips. Taking a deep breath, I let go and fall the last six feet or so. I hit the deck and roll, knocking the wind out of me again. I scramble to my feet and leap down into the grass, breaking into a run as soon as I’m on the ground. Darting out from behind the house, I’m in the middle of a housing development.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Left and left again,” Evan says.
I sprint across the neatly trimmed lawns, leaping over small bushes and kids’ toys. When I reach the intersection, I turn left and head down a steeply sloped street, my weapons clanging and slapping against my legs. Luckily, there aren’t any people out and about, since there are almost no trees and no useful shadows to hide in. If anyone looked out their window, I’m sure they would be a bit concerned about a girl running down the street looking like she’s trying to catch the bus to the renaissance fair, and then I spot the shimmering blue portal at the bottom of the hill. Clay is standing next to it, perhaps waiting for it to open enough for him to enter.
I grope for my crossbow. Just as I lift it, I look to the right and spot a tall, thin woman sitting on the front stoop of her brick house tossing a bright red and blue ball to a toddler with blond hair. She looks at me and I look back at her and I can see her mouth drop open as she’s grabbing her child and heading for the door. I turn my attention back to Clay and the portal.
“I see him,” Kateri says.
“We’re almost there!”
“We have to stop him before he goes into the Abyss,” I reply.
I fire two bolts within seconds of each other. The first misses but the second hits Clay in the left leg and he stumbles for a moment before looking up at me. He shakes his head and throws himself into the portal. The shimmering hole wavers and then I spot Kateri as she reappears at the bottom of the hill, making a bee-line for the portal.
“Kateri! Stop!” I scream.
The portal is starting to close and Kateri is racing straight for it, weapons out. I can see she’s screaming something, but I’m too far away to hear what it is. Just before she reaches the rapidly vanishing opening, Jax appears out of nowhere and tackles her, both of them landing hard on the pavement. A second later, the portal is gone, and I skid to a stop in front of the two of them. Kateri jumps to her feet and pushes Jax away.
“What the fuck! I almost had him!” she screams.
“You almost got killed,” he replies, brushing debris off his jeans.
“I would have made it.”
“You ever seen what happens when you’re caught halfway through a portal? Only part of you makes it to the other side. And you’re welcome by the way,” he adds.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” she shoots back.
Reeva and Syrra appear a split second later, weapons in hand.
“Did he get away?” Reeva asks.
I look at her and nod.
“If it wasn’t for your boyfriend, I would have caught him,” Kateri says angrily while staring at Jax.
“Did you not hear what I said about the portal?” he asks shaking his head.
“Okay, let’s all calm down,” I say, stepping between the two of them.
Kateri glares at Jax, while Syrra looks at something over my shoulder.
“What is it?” I ask while turning to see what she’s gawking at.
“I think you better find some shade,” Syrra says just as a State Trooper patrol car pulls into the development.
“Shit!”
He does the whoop-whoop with his siren and turns on his lights for a moment before coming to a stop a few yards away. As he’s climbing out of his car, I dart into the yard in front of the house where the young mom and her toddler were playing. There’s a deck to the right of the garage throwing a shadow into the grass.
“Hey! Stop!” the trooper yells.
I dash up the driveway heading for the safety of the shade. As soon as I step off the pavement, I slip on a pile of dog-shit and a hand grabs my arm from behind.
“Hold it!” a stern voice commands.
Crap!
I turn and look up into the face of a middle-aged State Trooper with short, dark hair and bright blue eyes. He stares at me for a moment, his brow furrowing slightly.
“What’s your name?” he asks, his tone a bit friendlier.
“Evelyn,” I reply, unable to come up with anything else.
“What are you doing here, and what’s with the weapons?”
“Oh, that…I uh…I’m on my way to a party,” I answer.
K - That’s smooth.
E - Shut up and help me.
“A party, uh-huh? What’s your last name?”
“Torino.”
He turns his head to the side and talks into his shoulder radio while staring at me. I can tell by his expression that something’s up.
“This is 115. Run a check on Torino, Eve.”
He tilts his head to the side, and for a second his eyes look down and to the right, the way you do when you’re trying to remember something.
All Things in the Shadows II Page 21