by Gwenda Bond
Nothing. More. Happens.
The sensation fades as soon as I remove the blade from the empty space.
I frown. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Try striking harder,” he says. “It needs to mimic an attack. But be care–”
There’s no more room for over-cautiousness here. I gather my strength and punch forward with the knife. The opening swallows my hand, and the blade hits the back of the stone within with a crunch. My knuckles vibrate with the impact, my skin stinging and scraped by the rough surface.
But it works.
A deep bass echo and invisible… force… pitch me back against the glass protecting the opposite wall. From the hollow comes a deep reverberation, sound made tangible as a shock wave, followed by bright light. At the observation window, Anzu snaps and snarls, angry instead of an ally now. But then he tumbles back and away.
I still have the knife in my hand as we move to the window to watch the walls rise.
They are nearly transparent, but not quite, emanating out from the Monument into the sky in an arc that must end at the edges of the city. The gods are being pushed out en masse, flung beyond the borders like the walls stand between this world and another one. The sound finally dies, but the forcefield – because that’s what the walls are – holds.
The streetlights below come on all at once, showing the destruction left behind. The eerie calm lasts for a single long moment. The first emergency sirens fill it, blaring from speakers mounted around the city.
“We did it,” Oz says.
“We did.” I study the boundary, and wish I could know for certain whether it will be enough to save us. “We postponed the end of the world.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
We ride back up the Mall, the streetlights showing every battered body and smashed national landmark, every response worker trying to help those who hang onto life. Oz rides to the stables, and goes in with Book to make sure he is settled. The stablemen are already spinning stories about the night, and one of them says, “Never thought they’d raise the walls in my lifetime.”
I listen, and wait for Oz to come back out.
A large group of people is gathered around the Jefferson, waiting for something – an explanation, probably. They pay no attention to us. As we approach the less-used ground floor entrance of the Jefferson together, I discover I’m nervous about seeing Mom… and Dad. About seeing what the future will hold now that we have one. Legba made it sound as if this game isn’t ending anytime soon.
Oz stops at the door, puts his back to it and faces me. We stand close, chest to chest. “What is it?” I ask.
But his serious expression tells me. It takes me back to that moment in the yard, when something was going to happen between us until Bree interrupted. The connection between us never left, not during any of this.
I’m still afraid of it. “Oz,” I say, before I can convince myself not to, “it’s better if we stay friends. I’m not… I can’t… Ask Tam. It won’t end well.”
He continues to look at me. Though the shadows around us hide the blue-gray of his eyes, I know them so well by now that I can imagine it.
“Kyra?” he asks.
Before I can give more excuses, he leans in and kisses me. I’m confused at first. Has this night really happened? Is this really happening?
Oz’s hand slides to the back of my neck, and his fingers pull my ponytail loose and tangle in my hair. I wrap my arms around him, press close to him, because I want more of this. This feels… new, like I expected a first kiss to feel before I had one.
Someone knocking on the other side of the door makes us separate. His palm drifts down my cheek. I’m not sure how to act after that, and I try for casual. “Kissing at the end of the world,” I say, tone light.
“No better time,” Oz says. “But before you give me a speech about why that can’t happen again, you should know that it will. Kyra, don’t freak out. I’m not asking for your hand in marriage.”
“Gah,” I say. “I can’t believe you even said that.”
“I know you think you’re not relationship material,” he says. My shock must be plain, because he says, “Bree told me.”
“I’m not.” But I’m less sure of it than I ever have been.
“No matter what happens, we have gone through all of this together,” Oz says. “And we will be friends, because of that. So, why not see where the rest goes?”
Because that way lies pain. Because that ways lies danger.
He’s right. I know he’s right. My internal protests are weakness. There will always be pain and danger and risk. But on the other side of those things might be something worth braving them for.
“You make a compelling argument,” I say.
That earns me a devilishly attractive grin.
The person on the other side of the door bangs on it with greater force, and Oz finally steps aside. It swings open. “Sorry,” Oz says, “we had some unfinished business.”
Two Society guards give us the eyeball, annoyed. But then they recognize us. “You two,” one of them says. The other adds, “You’re wanted upstairs by the acting director.” “Acting directors,” the first corrects him.
Oz and I exchange a look. We shrug in tandem. “Then that’s where we’re headed,” he says.
Upstairs, we find Society operatives everywhere, going in and out, up and down stairs, with loud chatter. In the Great Hall, my grandfather’s body has been removed and Dad is no longer tied down to the sun. The toppled statue still lays on its side, the marble below it cracked.
Rose clicks across the floor, her uniform exchanged for a sedate dove gray suit. Her black bob is neat and her makeup perfect. Right behind her is my father, also cleaned up and in a fresh uniform. I stop.
“You OK?” Oz asks.
“We saved him,” I say, and he must get how overwhelmed I am at realizing that, at seeing Dad in front of me alive and well, because he only nods.
Rose spots us before Dad does, and signals him so they meet us. I expect Dad to, I don’t know, thank me or fold me into a hug or tear up, but he greets me with, “Good to see you made it back unharmed.”
“Where’s Mom?” I ask.
“Nearby. I’ll take you to her as soon as we’re done here,” he says.
I didn’t realize we were doing something here, but fine. I can wait.
“Are you aware, Osborne,” Rose asks, “that the board is the only entity that can decide to raise the city walls?”
Oz turns to Dad. “Mr Locke said–”
“I know, and it was quick thinking on your part. Good job,” Rose tells him.
“That wasn’t nice,” I say.
The freckles on Rose’s cheeks lift as she smiles at me. “You did OK too, especially for someone with no training. Don’t you agree, Henry?”
“She made me proud.”
“Please, stop,” I say, and mean it. I think I may be blushing. Oz’s grin is back and it makes me want to punch his arm. Or pull him into a dark corner.
The levity doesn’t last. Rose sighs, says, “After all, you couldn’t have known we needed Bronson alive.”
“We didn’t,” Dad says. “We’re better off without him. I’m sorry, Oz, but there are better guardians for you.”
“He broke his vows,” Oz says. “And worse.”
It can’t be that simple for Oz. But I know he’ll get through this new loss and deal with the strange circumstances of it, whether it brings more nightmares or not.
Rose lifts one shoulder. “It’s a little inconvenient. We haven’t found a single note he left about how to put the gods back to sleep, no matter what he claimed, and I don’t expect that we will. We lost the only person who had the knowledge to truly protect us from the gods. Now we have to come up with a plan B, figure out how to move this door.”
“Which we will,” Dad says, confident.
Another group of people enter the Great Hall, and I am beyond glad that Tam and Bree are among them. Justin, Nalini and her
cameraman are too – even Ben. He’s wearing a suit that doesn’t look like one he’d own.
I go to meet them, and Oz sticks with me. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“You’ll see,” Tam says.
“We live in bizarro world now,” Bree adds. “Everybody getting along, cooperating. It’s freakish.”
Rose calls, “Are we all set? You understand what we’ll be doing?”
Ben nods, the picture of solemnity. Bree’s mother says, “We would like to keep the footage for archive purposes–”
Dad interrupts. “National security. I’m sorry, Nalini.”
She lowers her chin in agreement. “You stand here then,” she says to Rose.
“Are you guys OK?” Bree asks Oz and me.
“We are,” I say.
I notice Tam and Bree are holding hands. Excellent. I give Tam a nod, and I can tell he’s walking on the air somewhere around cloud nine.
It’s time for Rose’s show. Dad makes his way over to watch with the rest of us. He’s never liked spotlights. Rose may as well have been born in one, though.
She positions herself so that the downed statue is visible behind her, torch hand thrusting up. The cameraman and Nalini stand opposite her. Nalini says, “I’m here with one of the two new acting directors of the Society, who have taken over after Director William Bronson was slain earlier this evening. The Tricksters’ Council is consumed by violent infighting, and the Society has put special security measures in place to formulate a response. Rose Greene, what can you tell the world this evening?”
Rose begins to talk, weaving a story about the secret precaution that could force the gods from D.C., about the massive response the Society would be mounting worldwide, urging calm in the face of what were sure to be anxious days ahead… At the end, Nalini turns the microphone to Ben and asks for comment. He says, “I know I have been the Society’s harshest critic, but I urge you all to trust them on this. I… I believe they are working to restore peace.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah,” Tam says. “Never thought you’d hear that, did you?”
“Never,” I agree.
The interview over, Dad turns to me. “You ready to see your mom?”
“Can we make a stop at our reliquary first?” I ask.
“Sure. It’s on the way,” he says.
I can tell he wants to find out why, just like I want to ask on the way to where, but neither of us says anything more. “See you guys a little later,” I tell the others, mouthing “Mom” to them, so they’ll understand.
I accompany Dad downstairs, and he raises his eyebrows when I make it clear I don’t need direction to the gaslight fixture that leads to the network of secret hallways. When we get to the House Locke reliquary, I take the blue eye from my pocket and insert it. The door zips open.
Dad coughs. “I’ll be needing that back. And my stripes.”
So it is his. “But–”
“You’ll get ones of your own. Kyra, if you’ve taken to this like it appears, we’ll get you more training. You could take your vows before you know it. Maybe in two years.”
I scoff, “It won’t take that long. Trust me.”
He laughs, and I try to remember the last time I heard him do that. “So… you like the Ramones?” I ask. “You know this means I have to embrace country and western, right?”
He winces. “What about classic country? Johnny Cash would be good.”
“Not even. I’m going to pick something you loathe.”
He laughs again as we go inside. I walk along the hunter’s map and then toward the case that’s my destination.
“Why are we here anyway?” he asks, trailing me.
“Oh no,” I say. “I completely forgot. I left Vidarr’s shoe upstairs.”
He shakes his head. “I noticed. Someone put it away for safekeeping. I figured I’d return it later.”
“Oh, good,” I say. I hope they found my backpack too, so his Ramones shirt isn’t lost either. Or my jacket. But I see no need to mention that right now. “Because losing a major relic seems like the kind of thing that would be a black mark on my record.”
“I think you’ll find the record you’re building speaks for itself.”
I’m still me, and so I work to keep my expression neutral, rather than basking in an actual compliment from my father. Reaching deep into my pocket, I remove the shard from Legba’s cane and unwrap the tissue I put around it. I open the glass door and place it beside the white and black cap of chaos.
“And that is?” he asks.
I close the case. “It’s a bone fragment from Legba’s cane that I had to remove from Anzu. It kept him from healing. Don’t know what it’ll do as a relic, though.”
“Make that your record will more than speak for itself.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. I turn to him. We aren’t yelling at each other yet. It’s a record. “Kyra, I’m sorry I handled the past few years the way I did. I just worried about you all the time, and that meant rules you couldn’t handle, and so much distance between us…”
“I know.” Still no yelling. “You were being an idiot.”
“Watch it. I am your father.”
“You don’t know how grateful I am for that.”
I know we will never go back to that terrible place where we can’t talk to each other. We may still shout at each other occasionally, because old habits and strong opinions don’t always mix. But anger won’t be our constant state of being.
“Mom?” I ask.
“Mom,” he says. “Let’s go see her.”
We start toward the door. “You didn’t let her go wandering around?” I ask.
“No, she’s with the Pythias, her sisters in spirit. They should be able to stabilize her some.”
He means those women from the hall. I don’t ask any more questions, curious to see if she will be better. Legba could bring clarity to Mom – maybe they can do it without tricking her afterward.
We stop at a door like a waterfall, made of a thousand mirror shards. Inside, Mom sits between the two women Oz and I saw. She wears her black dress, kohl smeared around her eyes, a spot of darkness between the pale white dresses of the others. But all of them are beaming as if they emit light.
Dad folds an arm around my shoulders, and Mom wears a broad smile as she rises. She floats toward us. “My daughter,” she says, “who changed her fate.”
Dad brings us both into a hug, and we stand there with our arms around each other for a long time. It’s still not quite long enough to recapture the years we lost.
Mom eventually pushes back. “I want to see it, the wall, the barrier, the light that keeps the dark out,” she says.
Dad’s disapproval threatens to return, but I say, “Me too. Let’s go look at the walls. Together.”
“Fine,” he agrees.
I think it was the together that got him.
Dad holds Mom’s hand as we navigate the halls back upstairs. I know the turns at this point, so I lead. When we reach the Great Hall, there’s no one left in it. We head over to the guard at the line of massive doors.
“We’re going out,” Dad says.
The guard grumbles a little as he moves aside from the open one. “You and every single person not on duty.”
The front porch and steps of the Jefferson are covered with operatives, a civilian crowd massed on the sidewalks below. I spot my friends near the top of the stairs. We make our way to them. Dad keeps one hand on Mom’s shoulder, and his other on mine.
Oz and I lock gazes, but I break away to look up, where everyone else is. The boundary is a slight sheen, arcing high above.
There are no gods visible outside it, not here. But somewhere nearby, at the edge of the city, there will be. The walls might have forced the gods from D.C., but they are out there, and the rest of the world will witness their anger.
I close my eyes, and see my grandfather’s face again. I have to find out what he knew about putting the gods to sleep. The woman who charmed Enki
so long ago is also part of our family’s history. I feel the thread between the past and the present. The link may be fragile, but I am certain I can follow it. I can discover its secrets. I have to.
Radiant fire races along the outside edge of the translucent wall above, and the operatives around us gasp. But Dad doesn’t, and neither do I. It only confirms what I already assume.
The world is burning. We won’t have much time to smother the flames.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This has been a maddening trickster of a book to write, one that’s been rattling around my brain and word processors for several years and reincarnations. Which means there’s a small army of people who have offered insight and assistance on it. For comments on early versions of this story, I offer thanks to: Karen Joy Fowler (who kept asking about it), Karen Meisner, Justine Larbalestier, the insanely helpful workshoppers at the 2009 Rio Hondo and Blue Heaven workshops, and Stacy Whitman. I’m indebted beyond measure to the friends who listened to me whine, brainstormed worldbuilding, and kept me from jumping off a cliff in Mexico while I was writing this version. This book simply would not exist without my wonderful agent, Jennifer Laughran (without who I would be lost), and the patient belief of my editor, Amanda Rutter. To my husband, Christopher Rowe; once again I couldn’t do any of this without you, because I’d starve and fall into despair.
And, of course, my eternal gratitude to: the booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and friends who have been so supportive; my publisher, Angry Robot, and the sales team at Random House; each and every one of my readers.
Finally, I’m indebted to one of my favorite non-fiction works, Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – have written this book without it. My thanks to Neil Gaiman, who put it into my hands many years ago.
Any mistakes and shortcomings here are, as always, my own.
STRANGE CHEMISTRY
An Angry Robot imprintand a member of the Osprey Group
Lace Market House
54-56 High Pavement
Nottingham NG1 1HW