“There’s no pad at the top of Trump Tower,” said Rex.
“We’ll make one,” said Danny. “Get me up there, and I’ll get you a place to park.”
Val was taking the helicopter up the Chicago River, keeping the machine right on the deck. He didn’t know what made him want to do that, Talin wasn’t likely to be packing radar, but it seemed … it seemed … right. He swung the machine over the water, rotors tipping in the cool air, and kicked the sound system up louder.
There was something about Thunderstuck that seemed fitting.
Trump Tower approached, the structure poking above Chicago’s skyline in glimmering magnificence. Val had never stayed there, never really had the chance to, but he knew it was some kind of luxury hotel. The place where your moneyed betters could enjoy a stay in the heart of the city, probably get a nice view over the proletariat. Five stars all the way.
It had seen better days.
The silvered tower was pockmarked, windows shattered and open like missing teeth in an otherwise perfect smile. In some windows, curtain fabric was fluttering out into the cold air. Val tipped the helicopter into a turn, circling around the tower. The Black Hawk was loud around them — the machine had been built for a purpose, and that purpose wasn’t comfort.
“It’s a crappy plan, because what kind of idiot knocks on the front door?” John pointed out the open door of the helicopter. “Who punched out all the windows?”
Danny’s hair was swirling around her face in a red halo. She was grinning with delight as she leaned out the open door, one hand holding the top of the door frame almost absently as the helicopter yawed away from under her. She had such an embodiment of, of—
Joy.
—that Val wanted this moment to last. Forever, if that wasn’t too much to ask.
“The plan was always going to be crappy,” said Carlisle, tightening the straps that held her down as she glared at Danny. “We’re outnumbered what, two million to five?”
“Your math is good,” shouted Rex. He was squinting against the cold of the air flowing through the cabin. “Does she have to have the door open?”
“You ask her to shut it,” said Carlisle, tugging at her straps again.
“What happens if they squirrel out the bottom?” John was standing — of course — but bracing himself against the roof. “Shouldn’t we have a team down there?”
“What team?” said Val. “This is it. You know we’re not bringing Adalia and Just James into this.”
“I just want someone there,” said John, “with a catcher’s mitt.”
Val made the Black Hawk claw up through the air, Danny laughing as the helicopter soared. He brought the machine closer to the top of the tower. “How close you need us, baby?”
“Say,” said John, looking out over Danny’s shoulder. “There’s a couple dudes out there.”
“A who?” Val peered out the side of the cabin. “No shit.”
There was a cluster of people on the roof of the building. One of them was holding a tube.
That’s not a tube.
Val had a moment to wonder how you get a rocket launcher in Chicago — but hey, it’s Chicago, right — then he was making the helicopter slew sideways through the air. He caught a spark of light as the rocket fired, the trail of smoke behind it appearing faster than thought. The shot went below them as the helicopter’s engines roared.
“Wait—” said John, and Val caught a glimpse of Danny, teeth bared. She’d backed up to the other side of the cabin, dropped into a sprinter’s crouch, and then ran out the open door. The last glimpse Val caught of her was the back of her shoe as she launched herself from the side of the helicopter.
“Oh,” said Rex. “Oh my.”
Val watched, heart in his mouth — she’ll be okay, of course she’ll be okay — as Danny’s jump took her in an arc through the air to the top of the tower. She landed, rolled — and was already sprinting towards the man holding the launcher.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” said John. “Was it?”
The man with the launcher had seen Danny jump, had already dropped the spent tube, but the huddle of people were raising weapons and pointing them at Danny. All but one, who was standing by a turret.
A God-damned machine gun turret. In Chicago. Even Trump wasn’t ostentatious enough to have one of those mounted on the roof of his five-star hotel. That shit wasn’t factory fitment, and it was firing right at them. Val heard the shots chew the outside of the Black Hawk and he spun the machine, turning the open door away from the line of fire. Bullets rattled against the frame of the helicopter and something groaned in the belly of the beast. The helicopter’s engines started to labor, something wrong — a round luckier than most burrowing in somewhere soft and vulnerable.
Front of the building it is. He had to put the bird down before it fell out of the sky.
As the Black Hawk descended, he caught a glimpse of Danny, hair bright in the morning sun. She’d lifted the man with the launcher and tossed him over the side of the tower. He caught a glimpse of gleaming, yellow eyes before she turned back to the group around her and went to work.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“This kids’ table stuff is getting old,” said Just James. He was spinning his Gameboy — or whatever it was, Adalia didn’t really know — between his fingers. He’d stretched out on the couch, feet hanging over the end. Adalia liked his sandy hair. She found herself watching him. She looked away, feeling guilty without knowing why.
“How can it get old?” She looked at him from under her hair. “We’ve only just got here.”
“Right,” he said, blinking. “What I mean is—”
“You want to die,” said Adalia. She looked across at Gabriel, and the guilt intensified.
Just James blinked again. “Uh.”
“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” said Adalia, but she did. She wanted it to stop this boy — this young, beautiful man — from doing something that she couldn’t fix. “What I mean is—”
“He wants to show off to the girl,” said Gabriel. “Guys can’t help it. See a pretty girl, and you lose any hope of logical thought.”
He thinks I’m pretty. “What I mean is, there’s a thousand zombies out there.”
“Aren’t you, like, like, like,” said Just James, one hand groping through the air as if he’d find the word there, “a sorcerer?”
Gabriel snorted, black lashes batting. She wanted to reach out to touch his hair, push it away from his eyes. She clenched her hands together instead, then used her fingers to straighten her shirt. “I’m nothing like that. I don’t know.” She looked sideways at Just James, wanting to be somewhere else. Wanting to be right here. “I don’t know what I am.”
“But you can see things,” said Just James, pulling his long legs off the couch, planting Sketchers on the floor. He leaned forward. “You can … can you see the future?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Gabriel, shaking his hands at Just James. Just James ignored him, because of course he couldn’t see Gabriel.
“I can see the future,” said Adalia.
“You can what?” said Gabriel.
“Excellent,” said Just James at the same time. “What’s going to happen?”
“Everyone I love is going to go through terrible pain,” she said, “especially Uncle John.”
Gabriel and Just James both blinked at her. Just James went first. “Why — what?”
“It’s why you shouldn’t go out there,” she said.
“But,” said Just James, “why John?”
“Uncle John,” said Adalia, “is the kind of person that … avoids the problem. Usually. He can’t avoid this one. It’s … complicated.”
“He wants to run away?”
“No,” said Adalia. “He’ll run right for it. He can’t help himself.”
“Uh,” said Gabriel. “Oh, I get it. You’re trying to scare him off.”
“No,” said Adalia. “I really can see the future.
I mean, bits of it. Like a patchwork, without all the squares sewn in yet.” And it is terrible and beautiful and the end of all that I know. “What am I becoming?”
“Something awesome,” said Just James.
“Something beautiful,” said Gabriel.
“Oh,” said Adalia. She smiled behind her hair. “Someone else said that to me.”
“They were right,” Gabriel said, and she thought he meant something else. He looked down.
“You’re … you’re having one of your moments, aren’t you?” said Just James. “It’s cool. I don’t mind talking to myself for a bit. You know. ‘Hey, James, how about them Hawks?’ Or, maybe, ‘James, what you need to do is grab yourself a nice cold beer.’ If only there was electricity. Or something.”
“He is very noisy,” said Gabriel.
“He is just what I need,” said Adalia.
∙ • ● • ∙
When Adalia came out of the bathroom, feeling just about a million times better for having washed her face — just her face, but in clean water from a bottle in Uncle John’s looted stash — the apartment was empty.
Except for Gabriel. Who wasn’t really there. He was sitting on the top of the refrigerator, feet swinging against the front, heels tap-tap-tapping against the front. How can he make noise if he’s not really there? “I couldn’t stop him,” he said.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “You’d have to actually do something.” She was already scrabbling for her jacket, her small bag of things, her useless phone.
“I can’t do anything,” said Gabriel. His eyes were bright, angry. “It’s not my choice. I’m dead, remember?”
“I’m not,” said Adalia, “and I was just in there.” She pointed at the bathroom. “A closed bathroom door didn’t stop you when we first met.”
“This is different,” said Gabriel.
“Why?” Adalia wanted to scream at him. “You could have come and got me. We could have talked him out of it.”
“You don’t know boys,” said Gabriel.
“I’m starting to,” said Adalia. “I don’t understand the attraction.”
“What would have happened,” said Gabriel, “is that you would have gone with him.”
“No,” said Adalia. But she knew he was right. She didn’t like standing here while the Universe spun around her. She wasn’t the Sacrifice.
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “And I couldn’t … I don’t want that.”
Adalia pulled her jacket on around her shoulders, pushed her phone into her pocket, and stormed towards the door. “Sometimes it’s not about what you want,” she said. “It’s about what we need.” The door slammed behind her, feet stomping down the corridor and towards the stairs.
She didn’t see Gabriel in the apartment, staring around at the empty walls. She didn’t see that he stepped across the space for living people, reaching down to lay a gentle hand against the doorknob she’d just touched. And she didn’t hear him say, “I didn’t want that because, Adalia Kendrick, I love you. With all that’s left of my broken soul. And that is definitely against the rules.”
∙ • ● • ∙
Adalia’s feet moved, light as a scampering mouse, across the cold pavement. Abandoned cars sat empty all around her. She didn’t know Chicago and felt small against the towering buildings. She tugged her jacket close against the cold wind and wondered where to go.
Where the water meets the sky.
“Oh,” she said. “That way.” She started her trudge across the city, thinking about her family. The Knight, his Good Right Arm, the Sword, and the Shield. Weird names, right? The Universe clearly didn’t keep with the times. Those kinds of names were … well, no one would actually choose to name a baby the Sword, would they?
How was she going to get across the city in time? She pushed angry fists into the pockets of her jacket, hunching her shoulders as she strode forward. The air was so cold — it felt like a dead thing trying to hold her down.
The Reluctant Wanderer had taken them thousands of miles in a single night. She could almost see how it was done, a weight on the scales that allowed them to tip a certain way. If someone wanted to be that weight, that payment to the balance, she could make it across the city in a single step. It would feel like turning the corner and she’d be there. She’d be in time to save them all.
They thought they were saving the world, but they’d all be dead if she couldn’t get there in time.
A pack of zombies rounded a corner. Great, because I need this right now. At the head of the group was a man dressed in overalls, worn with use, some kind of maintenance worker from the guts of the city. He saw her, howled, and ran towards her.
Use his soul. Buy your passage. Pay the tithe.
“No!” said Adalia, and raised her middle finger at the sky. “People are not coin. They aren’t to be bought and sold.”
Then die.
“I don’t think so,” she said. The group was approaching fast, close enough now that she could see loops of drool hanging from the mouth of the maintenance worker. He was screaming, gibbering, ranting, climbing over cars rather than going around them in his frenzied attempt to get to her, to taste her flesh, to end her life.
“Hey!” said a voice, and Adalia looked across the street. Straight into the eyes of Just James.
Oh, no.
He was jumping up and down, waving at the zombies, trying to draw their attention. She could see it so clearly, like it was painted in black against the sky. He was trying to save her.
As if she needed saving, right? Melissa would have called it a rookie mistake. She could see the strings that held these people against their wills, taught thrumming lines stretching high into the heavens and low into the Earth. She’d been around the Night long enough to see how the inner construct moved. Like a clockwork.
Unlike Just James, who couldn’t see anything but a girl alone with zombies rushing for her. Just James, who was about to die.
She made a noise, at least half of it exasperation, the rest a plain old sigh. The horde had turned, the noise drawing them like cats at the end of a laser pointer. Just James’ face flashed a moment of panic, or fear, or both, before he screamed at her to run, Adalia, RUN! before he turned tail himself and rabbited.
Was this what it was like when Melissa looked at Uncle John, rolled her eyes, and said Men?
Adalia reached into the air with a hand, grabbing at the threads against the sky. They felt like soft wool against her fingers, elastic with a hint of coarseness at the same time. This one was tethered to the mind of a man named Marcellus Samuel Kentucky, which was the coolest name she’d heard in a long time. Definitely better than the Knight, or the Sword, or the Shield, or the Good Right Arm.
Marcellus Samuel Kentucky was the one wearing the overalls, and he’d been repairing a drain when his mind was taken from him. He had a wife and two kids he never saw, working a couple shifts back to back. He liked football. No, he loved football, Adalia could see that in the strumming of the thread against her hand. Loved it more than his wife and two girls, because the game didn’t ask when it could have new clothes or an iPhone or when he was going to take out the trash, because God he just needed a little peace and couldn’t they see that? She saw that Marcellus Samuel Kentucky had wanted to play a little ball himself, had some luck with college football on a scholarship before a bad tackle took his left knee and most of his pride.
She pulled the threads close to her lips and breathed against them, took in their smell, felt their texture, and understood. She took a tiny step to the side, into the place that made her head hurt to think about — don’t think don’t think just do — and became. She spoke from the starless void, her voice taken from her in exchange for something older, ancient, with terrible purpose.
Marcellus Samuel Kentucky. I want to make a trade.
A trade?
Yes. Marcellus Samuel Kentucky, I will give you back to yourself. In return, you will give me your love of football.
I love fo
otball. I love that damn game.
I know. I can see it. And it’s killing you. It’s the cord that binds you, that he uses against you.
Who? Who uses it? What are you talking about?
Talin Moray. He is the man who takes away your will. He offers no trade. Marcellus Samuel Kentucky, he is a thief. He steals from the very Universe.
And you’re different? You’re just another Betty Crocker, come down here to tell me what’s what. This thief? He’s given me power.
He’s taken away your will.
He’s taken away the pain in my leg.
Marcellus Samuel Kentucky, I tell you this once. The pain in your leg is a lesson. It is a memory that makes you a better man, if you have the wit to listen. You couldn’t have married her if you were on the road. You couldn’t have had two beautiful girls if you were away from home. You would have died of hepatitis from a shared needle. The Universe — we kept you alive, we kept you safe, and you threw the gift back at us. And she showed him, the story of his would-have-been-life. She showed him where he fell in love with his wife, and then pointed to the moment where it would have broken her heart when he slept with someone else. She showed the places in his soul where his daughters lived, the empty void that would be left without them. Marcellus Samuel Kentucky, this is the terrible beauty of your life. It is what you stand to lose if you take another step.
Why should I believe you?
Why should you not? It’s up to you. Here is my trade. I will give you back the pain in your leg, and take your love of football. That is all.
But … but I get to keep them? With their needs and wants? They never leave me alone.
You get to keep them. You are a king in a kingdom you’ve forgotten.
A king? Oh, I see it — and here, something inside him broke with the beauty of it — I … I’ll take your trade.
Adalia held the thread in her hand, reaching back into the void. She found it there, the loose end of Marcellus’ pain and hurt and anger and sense of failing at everything — and gave it back to him. In return, she took the bright, shiny thing that held his love of a game he could never play, gave it back up to the Universe. Put it into the starless void, and felt something right itself. The scales balanced a little bit, no more than a whisker, but she felt it. She had given this man something he couldn’t feel through the burden of his everyday life. She’d given him back the love of his wife and his two girls.
Night's Fall (Night's Champion Book 2) Page 28