Santoso smiled, swaying on his feet. “You will have to touch me first, Iris. You will have to lay your hands on my body. Maybe you will change your mind about killing me then.”
Iris did not feel like responding to that. In fact, she did not feel at all like talking—or, for a moment, fighting. The world felt wrong, as if it were tilting, tilting, and it was not until it began to shake, to rumble, that she realized her luck. Santoso, distracted, took his eyes off her for just one moment.
It was all the time in the world. Iris went for his throat. The gun exploded; her side felt warm, but his blood was warmer, and it was rushing down her throat so sweet, so sweet, and that was all she needed—more than freedom, more than her life—and she held on tight as ceiling tiles hit the floor, as furniture toppled, as glass shattered.
She thought of Blue, of his voice and hands, of his—you will never be alone, because I love you, I love you, Iris—
Then the world went dark.
Blue was not quite man enough to admit aloud how close he came to pissing himself when the ceiling stopped less than an inch from his head, but he figured that was okay, because everyone was screaming like it was Apocalypse Now, and frankly, he doubted he was the only one suffering from a weak bladder.
He tried to speak, but his mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper. He worked up enough spit to swallow—and dear God he was going to die, holy crap, holy shit that ceiling was close to his face—and blindly stuck his hand out, searching for his brother. “Daniel, you there?”
He could barely hear his own voice over the cries around him—those accountants, still in their corner—so he tried again, coughing at the end of his brother’s name. Daniel did not respond—there was no hint of his voice or his body—but a moment later the ceiling groaned and shuddered, dust and shards of debris falling against Blue’s face, choking him, and just when he thought again that he was going to die, he sensed movement, felt the air churn, and beneath his lashes caught a hint of dull gray light.
Freedom.
“Blue.” One word, croaked from a throat that sounded cut by razors. It was as close as he thought it should be, only he had not reached out far enough. His brother had rolled when the ceiling came down.
“Blue,” Daniel said again, his voice almost lost beneath the chaos of weeping and shouting—not just in this room, but from others nearby. “Blue, you have to get those people out. I can’t hold—I can’t do this much longer.”
I can’t do this much longer.
“Shit,” breathed Blue, staring up at the crumbling, buckling ceiling with new understanding. Because of course it had stopped, and not just because something had gotten in the way.
Blue tried to scoot across the floor toward the break in the ceiling. There were people in his path, some with the same goal in mind, and Blue not-so-gently kicked them out of his way as he fought to reach the hole. Iris filled his vision, his last glimpse of her collapsed in the street, and he gritted his teeth, pushing harder. If a ceiling had fallen on her …
He made it to the break. Some of the accountants were already struggling through. Body hurting like hell, Blue stifled a groan and reached. Hands unexpectedly grabbed his wrist and pulled him up: strangers, one floor above, trying to save his life. Blue had to climb—the ceiling itself was hovering only to his waist, but the wreckage and debris piled on either side of the hole created an impressive obstacle that had him stifling groans as his knee ached.
There were people topside encouraging him to climb out the entire way, but once he got a good hand-and foothold, Blue reached back down to help pull out the few remaining survivors. He called Daniel’s name only once, but got no response. Called for his father, too, but received the same silence.
Blue tried to remember how many people had been in the room with them at the start of the earthquake, but his brain refused to process that much information. When the trickle slowed to nothing, though, Blue scrabbled back down into the hole, getting down on his knees. He crouched in the darkness, trying to see, searching for heartbeats with his mind. He found one very close—reached out—and made contact with a slender ankle. He pulled hard, twisting around so that he could haul backward with all his strength. After a breathless struggle he pulled an unconscious woman into the light. He pushed her toward the waiting hands, then shimmied back into the darkness beyond the edge of the hole.
“Daniel!” he shouted, looking for another beating heart. He found one—and only one.
“Fuck,” his brother muttered brokenly, lost beyond Blue’s ability to see. “Get the hell out of here. Now.”
“Absolutely,” Blue said, trying not to think about the crushing weight floating so tenuously above his body as he scooted toward his brother, led only by the pulse of his heart.
“I’m serious,” Daniel said, and this time his voice was worse, raw, on the edge of a sob. “Jesus, Blue. I can’t move. You won’t move me.”
A chill broke through him. “Tell me.”
“No time,” Daniel whispered, and Blue found himself shooting backward, feet first toward the hole and its shaft of light. He shouted, trying to slow himself, but all he got were cut fingers and a mouthful of dust as the ceiling directly in front of him collapsed with a thunderous, deafening thud. The air shook with the impact—Blue shook—and he let himself be dragged to safety just as the portion of the ceiling beneath him dropped more than a foot, sending everyone down in a rough tumble that hurt like hammer blows to Blue’s limbs and aching head.
Daniel.
Blue did not move. He did not dig for his brother. He stretched beyond his shields, searching, and found no trace of a heartbeat beneath the rubble. No pulse. Nothing.
Hands tugged on his shoulders. Blue shrugged them off, pushing himself to his knees and then to his feet. He swayed, dizzy. All he could do was stare at the portion of the ceiling below him, imagining his brother, Daniel …
No time.
Blue closed his eyes, Daniel’s face swimming in his mind. His brother. His brother, gone. And his father.
Deal with it later. Later, when you’re still alive and out of this hell. When you have Iris.
Blue began looking for a way out.
The air smelled like blood and feces. Blue decided that if a scream could have a scent, this would be it. Hard, bitter, dirty. He also wanted to scream, but had no time—not yet—and he pushed through the chaos of the dying and injured, moving from one floor to another, searching with his heart and mind until he felt crazy bite him on the edges, until his throat felt so full of fear he choked on it, leaning over his knees and gagging so long and hard he thought his stomach would fall up through his esophagus.
“You,” said a familiar voice, sharp. “You, Perrineau. Where is my daughter?”
Blue looked. Serena stood beside him, swaying, dressed in a simple white hospital gown. She held a small naked child in her arms. Blood trickled from a soaked bandage over her missing eye. Seeing her was like seeing a ghost; he thought he was hallucinating. He had forgotten she even existed.
“You’re alive,” he said, surprised but unable to muster much emotion. “Where were you? How did you get free?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. My daughter. I want her.”
“I don’t know where she is. I’m looking.”
“She is alive,” Serena growled. Her good eye flashed, a golden light in the dusty haze. “She is alive. I know it. I am her mother and I know it.”
“Alive,” Blue echoed. “Yes. I know it, too.”
Serena’s jaw tightened—hard words were coming—but the child in her arms began to stir, and she glanced down at him; quick, almost startled. Breathless.
“I did not mean to take him,” she murmured, tearing her gaze from the child to look again at Blue. Her eye was no longer hard, but instead haunted, filled with the ghost of so much pain that Blue felt it echo in his heart. “He was in the operating room beside me. For a harvest. Kidneys. He is a burden I do not need, Perrineau. I do not know why I took him. My daughter needs me more
. I must find her.”
“I will find her. Your daughter has me.”
“You are nothing,” Serena said, but Blue touched her face—gentle—and she shut her mouth with a snap.
“I am the man who loves your daughter,” he told her softly, feeling the rest of the world fall away as he looked into her golden eye. “And I am the man who will find her. So go, Serena. Just go. Save the boy. Trust me to do this.”
“No,” she whispered, but Blue had already begun to back away, and he broke into a run before she could follow.
He traversed what remained of the hall, cutting through swaths of daylight as he passed immense cracks in the building; hot, humid air soaked through, turning the ruins into a sauna as he struggled on instinct, searching desperately for a pulse that might be familiar. He had never been able to tell a person from their heart, but for Iris—for her, lost in this mess, alone with Santoso—
Alone and buried. Like Daniel.
Blue heard a groaning sound: the building, his world, slanting sideways. The ceiling sagged; bodies and furniture sprawled through open doors. Window glass crunched beneath his shoes. No electricity ran through the wires in the walls; power was dead and gone.
“Iris,” he murmured, leaning against the wall, trying to shut out the distant wails of voices and sirens, the trickle of water, the smell of screams smeared on his body.
If you lose her …
No Iris, nothing would be left. This was do or die. Blue sucked in his breath and tore down his shields, scrapping them to nothing but dust. Unprotected, raw; the onslaught, previously controlled, ripped into him like a hacksaw against his brain. No protection; his heightened sensitivity cut his mind. This area might not have power, but the rest of the city certainly did, and holy God, it hurt.
Blue shuddered, holding his head, trying to swallow the discomfort as he searched for heartbeats, bioelectricity, anything that whispered Iris. Anything that made his own heart say, Yes.
You can’t identify a person based on the beating of a heart, whispered a little voice. No matter how connected you feel. No matter how much you love her.
Nothing to lose, though. Nothing but his life. Blue kept moving, one hand against the jagged slumping wall as he tripped and hobbled, the world fluttering inside his head, his vision sparking with light and spots of darkness. Daniel flashed through his thoughts, their father, but Blue pushed them both away, throwing his mind over the sparks of human electricity flickering sporadically through the building around him.
He smelled bleach, acrid and stinging. His eyes watered. Ahead, life; a body glided free of dust and shadows. Another impossible ghost.
“Hello,” said Broker. Blood covered the side of his face, his clothing. Blue could not imagine how he had managed to survive—or escape so quickly. He did not have a weapon. In fact, his left arm hung at a strange angle. Dislocated, broken, or crushed, it was impossible to tell.
“Where’s Iris?” asked Blue.
“Close.” Broker maintained his distance, his features almost lost in the haze of the settling building. The earth rolled gently; an aftershock. Broker kept perfect balance, barely swaying. Blue did not quite manage the same; he staggered, forced to lean against the shuddering wall until the world stopped moving. Broker’s heart pulsed inside his head.
“Tell me,” Blue said.
“Tell you?” Broker’s smile was strained. “What if I told you instead that your brother is not dead? What if I made you choose?”
“I’d choose Iris.” And so would Daniel, if our positions were reversed.
“Always the woman,” Broker said softly. “You could find another. There are easier ways to love.”
Blue pushed away from the wall. “If you won’t talk, you’re of no use to me.”
“So you will kill me. Easy for you now, correct?” Broker leaned deeper into shadow. “You should know, Mr. Perrineau, that one day you will kill me, and in a most permanent fashion. I have foreseen it. That is part of the reason I wanted you dead. It was not all about the money.”
Blue almost expected a gun to materialize in the bastard’s hands, but Broker continued to do nothing but stand, watching him.
“Iris,” he said again.
Broker closed his eyes. “The end of the hall.”
Blue did not move. “Hey.”
“Yes?”
He smiled. “Why don’t we make it today?”
Broker’s eyes widened, but all it took was a thought. A quick finish, with no last curtain call. The man hit the ground hard. Blue searched himself for guilt and found nothing at all.
He ran, leaping over debris and hands outstretched for help. He searched for heartbeats in that last room and found only one—faint, growing weaker by the moment. And then it stopped completely.
Blue had to kick down the door, but it had already come off one of its hinges, and the wood slammed into the floor. It was dark inside, but part of the ceiling had collapsed, and Blue fell to his knees, clawing through steel and plaster, cutting his hands as he dug through the mess, fighting to reach Iris. There was so much to pull aside, though—too much, a suffocating weight—and the thought of her being buried alive …
His hand touched her leg, and then more. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he braced himself and leaned back hard, hauling her out with a shout. He rolled them both until she lay flat on the floor. Naked, partially human, covered in patches of spotted fur. Not breathing. Her heart silent.
Blue tilted up her head and breathed air into her blood-smeared mouth, pumping her chest with his fists. One, two, three—breath—one, two, three—breath. But she did not respond, and the world suddenly turned upside down inside his head. At first he thought it was grief, but the spinning and shaking did not stop, and the air roared so loudly that the only place he could hear was in his chest, which rattled and ached. He felt heat, and a part of him recognized fire, an explosion—probably some gas line in the building going boom. Black smoke filled the room.
Blue did not move. No Iris, nothing left, he thought again, and he lay his hands upon her chest, reaching down into her heart, begging with everything he had for that tiny muscle to spark, to pulse, to live—to become again, Iris. Iris, golden—Iris, shining—Iris, smiling and warm and laughing beneath his body.
And as he filled himself with her, it seemed to him that there was power inside his body, electricity pulling and pulling from the city into his skin. Blue felt as though his hair was floating, and next would be the flesh, muscle, bone. Full of power, a conduit, he pushed his hands harder against Iris’s chest, shoving outward with his gift to surround her heart, to massage the muscle with electricity. To strike it with baby thunderbolts.
He got a beat, and then another. Strong, even, steady. Iris’s eyelids fluttered. She murmured his name, and he dragged her close, pushing them both into the corner. Iris coughed. Blue coughed, too. The smoke pouring into the room was bitter, painful, but there were no windows and Blue could see the edge of a terrible fire raging just outside in the hall. No exits, not above or below. Blue finally noticed Santoso sprawled on the ground. He was missing his throat.
“Are you okay?” Iris whispered, hoarse. Blue choked, rocking her as the air and heat murdered them. His eyes burned, and not just from the smoke.
“Got you here,” he rasped. “I’m good.”
“Me, too,” she said, staring out at the rolling smoke, the fire. And that was it for him: the end. He tightened his grip around her body, turning them so that his back was to the flame. Iris said his name.
And then, quite suddenly, he felt a waft of cool air against his neck and the bone-crushing grip of two hands grabbed his shoulders. One moment, fire—and in the next, Blue found himself sitting in a small stone courtyard littered with debris. His lungs hurt, but not enough to dampen his enjoyment. Coughing, he hugged Iris close, pressing his lips into her hair.
Dean crouched beside them and Blue grabbed his arm, dragging his friend in for a hug. Dean was covered in oil stains, filth, dri
ed blood. He patted Blue on the back. “Too many close calls, man. I would have come sooner, but those guys who attacked us in the street shot our asses full of drugs and dumped our bodies in a ditch. Don’t know why they didn’t just kill us. They probably thought the locals would do it.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Blue rasped. “Thank you for saving our lives.”
“Whatever,” Dean said, gentle. “You’re lucky we woke when we did. We’re all lucky. The earthquake hit just as we were getting our acts together. A whole neighborhood came down around us. But after the dust settled, all I had to do after that was find your trail.”
“My mother?” Iris asked.
“I saw her in there,” Blue said quickly. “She was alive, rescuing a child.” Iris closed her eyes. “And Daniel?”
“Right here.”
Blue turned, staring. Daniel sat directly behind them, dressed in plaid boxer shorts. His face was still a mess, as was the rest of him, but he was alive. Impossibly, wonderfully, alive. He stood and walked to them, crouching for a bear hug that only days ago would have seemed as ridiculous as surviving the weight of that damned ceiling.
“I can’t believe it.” Blue wondered if this was it and his mind had finally left him. “You were dead. I couldn’t hear your heart.”
Daniel ran a hand over his face; his entire arm trembled. “I sure as hell didn’t see any white lights down there, so I’m pretty sure I was alive the entire time.”
“Then how did you survive?”
“Same way I lived through my fire act. I built telekinetic shields directly upon my body. Almost like bulletproof skin, with a special air pocket over my face.” His grin seemed to verge on the edge of hysterical. “I was able to hang on until your friend found me.”
“I stumbled onto his trail and saw that he was still breathing,” said Dean. “The rest is history.”
“And all that talk about being pinned?”
“Didn’t mean I was paralyzed,” Daniel said. “I just couldn’t move, and I didn’t have enough strength to get out from under that debris and hold up the ceiling at the same time. I made my choice.” He hesitated, shadows gathering around his eyes. “Our father is still down there.”
Eye of Heaven Page 34