“I think you’re full of teenage hormones,” said Carlisle. “What’s he look like?”
“About my age,” said Adalia. “He’s got these wonderful lashes—”
“Hormones,” said Carlisle, “are more dangerous than crack cocaine.” She was quiet for a moment. “He was in the store.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Adalia rolled with it. “Yeah. And in the car.”
“Which car? This one?”
“Yeah.” Adalia looked down at her hands, wanting to fill them with something.
“Is he here now?”
“No,” she said. “I think … I think Mom did something to him.”
“So…” Carlisle thought for a minute. “No one can see him. I can’t see him. Your mom, under the normal order of the universe, can’t see him. But you can see him.”
“Yes.”
“Have you…” Carlisle trailed off, before trying again. “What I mean is, what happened in the shower?”
“I screamed.”
“After that?”
“We talked,” said Adalia. “After I got a towel.”
“Talking,” said Carlisle. “That’s all?”
“What would we have done?” Adalia felt her brow furrow. “Should I have done something?”
“Heavens no,” said Carlisle with a nervous laugh. “No, doing something with your invisible friend would have been worse than … well.”
Adalia looked out the windscreen for a moment. “Thanks.”
“For what?” Carlisle was intent on something, slowing the car down a bit.
“For not asking if I was making it up,” said Adalia. “I was afraid no one would believe me.”
“Kid,” said Carlisle, “I’ve told you before. We don’t lie to each other. You save that for your mom or Everard. You and I are honest, right?”
“Right.” Adalia nodded around the edges of her hair.
“So when we’re honest, well, you could tell me the moon was made of cream cheese and I’d just want to know whether it was a Philly spread or not.”
“What about Uncle John?” said Adalia.
“What about that Mickey Mouse clown?”
“Should I lie to him?”
Carlisle breathed out a sigh. “I’m not really good at this, kid. Here’s the thing. You shouldn’t lie to anyone. But I get that sometimes you feel you got to. Right?”
“Right.”
“But not between us.”
“Right,” said Adalia, feeling a little confused.
“The thing about Miles,” said Carlisle, “is that he’s a rock ape. He’s a caricature of a man. He plays,” and she swallowed, “video games.”
“I play video games,” said Adalia.
“You’re a fourteen year old girl,” said Carlisle. “It’s expected. Miles is a forty year old man.”
“Uncle John’s forty?”
“None of us stay young forever,” said Carlisle. “Thing is … thing is, I’m pretty sure he’d know you were lying to him.”
Adalia thought about that for a bit, then let her thoughts wander a little. The trees were thinning around them, snow appearing in more even patches on the ground. “You don’t like Uncle John very much do you?”
Carlisle slammed the brakes on the Yukon, and Adalia’s head jerked forward, her body held back by the seatbelt. Carlisle sat still in the car for a moment, then said, as if choosing her words with infinite care, “What makes you ask that?”
“Because,” said Adalia. “Because of how you talk about him.”
“Right,” said Carlisle. “While we’re baring souls here, I trust him. It’s just … shit’s complicated.”
“Why do you trust him?” Adalia thought about Uncle John, how he’d decided to stay with Valentine in Chicago. About how he’d tousled her hair before she’d hopped in the truck with her Mom. Take it easy, kid. I know it’s, well, it’s a low bar, but try not to do shit I wouldn’t do. She’d laughed at the time.
“Because he’s on the team,” said Carlisle. “Because he’d die for me.” She turned to look at Adalia. “Because he’d die for you.”
Adalia turned away. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want people dying for me.”
“Yeah, well,” said Carlisle, “I’m not a big fan of dying either. You asked.”
“There,” said Adalia, pointing. There was a crumpled form lying in the snow off the track, red curls against the snow. “She’s there. She’s okay.”
“Kid,” said Carlisle. “Kid, wait here.”
“She’s not … she’s her, Melissa. She’s back.” Adalia wanted to run from the car, just about the same time as she felt Carlisle’s hand on her arm. She turned to look at the other woman.
“Kid,” said Carlisle, then she paused. “Adalia? Can you leave it to me? This time. Just this once.”
“Okay,” said Adalia, but she felt the flush of happiness hit her. It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jessica straightened her cap on her head, checked her sidearm, then stepped out of the Humvee. She strode with a purpose, and that purpose was saving lives. God damn civilians. It’s like they don’t know when to call in for support.
Her aide, Gibson, picked up next to her. He was talented — knew when he was needed, knew when to shut up, both qualities she found worth their weight in gold. The man’s pace looked hurried next to hers. It was something he’d need to work on if he wanted a command of his own one day. “Ma’am?”
“What is it, Gibson?”
“Ma’am, we’ve got intelligence that says—”
“Save it,” she said. “I want eyes on first.”
“Ma’am,” said Gibson, still trying to keep up. He carried a tablet under his arm, the device held ready for when she wanted to see what he had. Thing was, she didn’t really want to see what was on the tablet. In her experience, intelligence was a thing like insurance. It sucked to not have any when you needed it, but it was useless the other ninety-nine percent of the time.
She stalked to the front of the column, soldiers straightening as she passed. It was the kind of respect that she expected, her command being run with a precision that earned her the moniker Perfect Pearce among the men and women who served her.
Really, this was easy. She was far from perfect, and it was that memory — the knowledge of how she’d failed when it mattered most — that pushed her on. If she’d been perfect, Gabriel would still be alive.
“Gibson,” she said, coming to a halt.
“Ma’am?”
“Gibson,” said Jessica, “I need binoculars.”
“Ma’am,” said Gibson, magicking them from somewhere about his person. She wasn’t sure how he managed that, but given time she’d work it out.
“Thank you,” she said. She held the binoculars up to her eyes, looking out over the expressway and at the edges of the city of Chicago. She worked the glasses left to right, scanning the scene before her. “Gibson?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m going to guess our intelligence says that the city has been taken over by terrorists.”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“They’d be wrong,” she said. She picked out a building at the edge, the structure in flames. Another behind it had already burned low, the frame of it standing uneven against the sky like an old candle wick. “Terrorists may be involved, but one thing’s for sure. No one’s in charge.” She scanned the skyline over the city. “No air traffic. Not even a news chopper.” She brought the glasses lower, towards the streets. “Still some activity there. Is that…” She swallowed, lowering the binoculars. It hadn’t even been this bad in Afghanistan. Sure, they strapped bombs to their kids and sent them into blockades, but there was a daily limit to that kind of thing. She looked at Gibson. “I’m going to need a perimeter set up. I’m going to need birds in the air. What I’m going to need,” she said, “is an explanation of why they’re eating each other.”
CHAPTER TWE
NTY-FIVE
Rex watched out the window of the car as Sky rolled them at a slow speed through the streets. Where are all the people? You’d expect more people. Or more bodies. Or something.
Right on cue, Just James cleared his throat. “Where are all the people?”
“You got me,” said Sky. Her hands were steady on the wheel, the car traveling nice and easy despite the debris littering the streets.
It’s not like there were no people. Rex saw the bodies, plenty of them. They were all the same, as if they’d been tossed to the ground right in the middle of something. That something was probably running for your life. Or trying to kill someone. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground.
“How far?” asked Rex, for about the hundredth time.
“We got another few blocks yet,” said Sky, like she had the other hundred times.
“We need,” said Rex, “to talk about your definitions.”
“I don’t follow.”
“’A few’ seems a bit random,” he said.
“It’s not like I know which streets are blocked,” she said.
“She’s got a point,” said Just James.
“Whose side are you on?” said Rex, but he let a smile hit his face anyway. The kid was doing great, all things considered. Seen his stepfather go batshit crazy and get tased. Saw a bunch of dead people. Seemed okay with all of it, more or less. Some people were just built that way.
“What’s that?” said Just James, pointing out the front of the window.
“Looks like a plane,” said Rex.
“Looks like,” agreed Sky. “Why’s it flying low over the city?” Almost before she’d finished talking, the jet blasted over the top of them, sound rattling hard against the windows of the car. A short moment later, two more jets followed after, the hard roar of turbines leaving Rex’s ears ringing.
“I think,” said Rex, “that we should get off the road.”
“There’s crazy people who eat each other outside,” said Sky. “I like the car. The car is good.”
“The car is good,” agreed Just James.
“The car is a slow moving target,” said Rex. He pointed to the detritus on the streets around them, his arm highlighting a piano on the road. A piano. On the road. “You need to keep driving around crap like that. I mean, how’d a piano get here? On foot we’d be smaller, faster moving targets.”
“You say target like something’s going to happen,” said Sky.
“Those birds we just saw,” said Rex, “are military. They are recon planes. They take a bunch of photos, mark targets, give intel. Back at master control, someone is reviewing footage on a TV screen right now. They’re looking at that, seeing the city full of crazy people. They are going to try and do something about that, and the military have just one solve for most things.”
“But the car,” said Sky.
“If you were sitting safe in a bunker looking at footage of a car driving through the city safe as houses, would you think ‘refugee’ or would you think ‘terrorist?’” Rex rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I’m not saying that they military is going to bomb the car.”
“They’re going to bomb the car?” Sky’s voice had a hysterical edge.
“No—”
“I don’t want to be in the car when they bomb it,” said Just James.
“Right,” said Rex. “They probably won’t bomb it. But if they do, we won’t want to be in it.”
“The car is shit,” said Sky. “I do not like the car.”
“I think the car is a bad idea,” said Just James, nodding. “We should lose the car.”
“We’re not losing the car,” said Sky. “The car pays for my rent. But for now, we should leave the car in a safe location and lock it.”
“Before we lose the car—” said Rex.
“Park the car,” said Sky.
“Before we park the car, we need to work out where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. I don’t like this street.” Rex sniffed. “Don’t like it at all.”
A helicopter thudded around the corner of a tall building, blades slamming against the air. Rex felt his eyes open, the sight of a chain of humans — God damn barrel of monkeys, is what it is — strung out below it. The helicopter wasn’t flying with the kind of precision he expected from the military, and as they watched a body fell from the side of it. It was hard to tell at this distance if it was man or woman as their arms pinwheeled during their fall. More of the people hanging from the underside were pulling themselves up into the helicopter. The note of the engine took on a desperate edge, and it started to cant to the side, tail section pulling sideways as it slewed through the air.
“Get out of the car,” said Rex. “Get out of the car now.”
“I thought you didn’t like this street,” said Just James.
“I don’t like this street, but I don’t like what’s coming even more,” said Rex. He kicked open the door of the car, grabbing Just James by the arm and pulling the kid out. Sky was already moving, driver’s door punched open as she pulled herself out. Rex started to hustle James over to the side of the road towards the door of an old dry cleaner’s, the inside empty of people. He tossed a glance behind him, saw Sky vaulting the hood — nice ass — of the car, sliding off the edge and on to her feet. The helicopter was sliding out of the sky down the street, the machine now in a slow spin as it lost altitude. Rex pushed Just James inside the dry cleaner’s ahead of him, then turned to hold the door open for Sky. He saw she was headed back to the car, scrambling back over the hood. Definitely a nice ass. He shook himself “Hurry! Christ, girl, now’s not the time to stop for a quart of milk!”
She leaned in the car, snaring something out. She broke into a sprint as the helicopter’s blades touched the asphalt of the street, the blades shearing off faster than Rex could follow. One of the blades tumbled end over end down the street, fragments of metal flying away before it bounced clear over the top of Sky’s car. She made it to the doorway of the dry cleaner’s, and Rex pulled the door shut behind her. “Go!”
Just James was looking at them both, wide eyed. “Where?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Rex. “Towards the back.” He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, old bones resisting the pressure he was putting on them. He saw Just James disappear through a line of hanging suits, Sky following him. He reached the line of clothing as the world kicked his feet out from under him, the floor tossing him up. He felt the weightless rush of air going past his face, and for a moment — Christ, Rex, is this how it ends? — he felt at peace. Then the floor hit him in the face as he landed on it, the breath running out of him in a rush. He felt the impossible heat of something behind him, light and fire and smoke all mingling to jar at his senses. The air seemed to be sucked out of the room, pulling right from his very lungs.
Get up, old man. Nothing worse than the gas explosion he’d taken a crew to. That job had been all barbecued bodies and fallen concrete, rebar poking out through chunks of building and people. Only real difference is he’d had a fire axe and an oxygen tank for company, and the damn tank had run dry anyway. Rex opened his eyes, coughing the smoke from his lungs, before getting a hand under himself. He levered himself — at least your damn bones aren’t popping, that or you’ve finally gone deaf or senile or both — up, allowing himself a quick look over his shoulder.
The front of the dry cleaner’s was gone, glass blown clear of the frames. Where Sky’s car had been, there was nothing but fire and twisted metal. Rex couldn’t work out which bits were car and which bits were helicopter, but it probably didn’t much matter. That kind of thing was a job for insurance companies, men in cheap suits with expensive pens. Not firemen. He resisted the urge to check the wreckage. Ain’t no one there, Rex, and there’s people who need you alive right by you.
He touched something wet on his back, and his hand came away sticky and red. The glass from the windows had blown inward, and he’d caught a bunch of it in his back. It had been turned into a
fine powder, almost like glitter. He hated glitter, there was that one wedding invitation he’d got full of the stuff. He’d been pulling glitter out of everything for weeks afterward, even found some in his shaving cream. How’s glitter get into shaving cream? That’s a thing, right there.
“Rex,” said a woman’s voice. He let his gaze wander over towards the noise, saw a pretty young girl there. He couldn’t quite put his hand on her name right now.
“Hi,” he said. “What do you call yourself again?”
“Sky,” she said. “It’s me, Sky. Did you get hit on the head?”
“I don’t think so,” said Rex. “I think I fell on my face.”
“Same thing,” she said. “Come on. We’ve got to get moving.”
“Where?” Rex blinked at her. “Say. Did you get what you went back to the car for?”
“The taser?” She held it up. “I got it.”
“That was dumb,” he said. Then, “I think I’m going to have a sit down, if that’s okay.”
A kid — Just James, that’s his name, it’s Just James — poked his head out around some clothes. “Rex, are you okay?”
“Pretty sure I’m not,” he said. “That’s okay. You kids head on out. I’ll be fine.” He felt the world sliding sideways, that damned ground coming up towards him again. He fought against the fall, for all the good it did. He was old and spent, but that was okay. It was nice to be needed again, and if he went out helping people, well, that’s the best way in the world. The ground hit him again but this time it felt soft and warm, the blackness welcome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Hey.” The woman’s voice was familiar, the cold of the world giving her the breath of a dragon. It had been a long time since dragons had stood astride the surface of the Earth, the fierceness of their wars and lovemaking both making the ground tremble.
She allowed herself to open her eyes, taking in arms cast in front of her in the snow. That can’t be right. Arms, hands, not claws. The weakness of this form invaded again, taking over her being, her thoughts, starving her of will and purpose.
Night's Fall (Night's Champion Book 2) Page 17