by Daniel Price
Mia approached her as she de-shifted. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just . . .” Hannah followed her senses across the hall, then flinched at the corpse in the engineer’s office, a slender young blonde in fiberweave armor. Hannah could see that she’d died violently, but who could have possibly done this to her? Peter? Jonathan? Amanda?
“Hey.”
She turned around and saw David on the stairwell at the end of the corridor, his pistol clenched in his hand. He hurried down the final steps.
“Are you all right? You look—”
“Did you do that?”
“Do what?”
Mia stepped into the hallway and screamed. “David! Behind you!”
David spun around and raised his gun, but it was knocked out of his hand. He fell backward against the wall, giving Hannah and Mia a clear view of his assailant.
The man stood calmly by the stairwell, glistening in his molded tempic armor. At first glance, Mia’s mind refused to accept him as real. He was a nonsensical entity—the Superman of mannequins, an unfinished painting come to life.
As David regained his footing, the tempic man slowly approached Mia. He spoke to her in an otherworldly whisper, filled with ancillary noises that no human throat could possibly make.
“Forget the air brakes. They’ve been disabled, both here and above.”
Hannah tightened her grip on her billy clubs. The man’s accent was a puzzling mixture of British and God-Knows-What. She had little doubt that he was a Pelletier, though he wasn’t quite tall enough to be Azral. Hannah could only guess that he was the other guy in the family, the one she hadn’t seen since she was a child. She couldn’t remember much about what he’d looked like back then. He certainly hadn’t been covered in tempis.
“What do you want with us?” Hannah asked him. “Why do you—”
The stranger walked past her without so much as a glance. “The ship’s controls have been diverted to a portable computer,” he told Mia. “You’ll find it in the kitchen. Stop the ascent and then gather the others. Pendergen will teleport you all to safety.”
David stroked his aching arm. “Why should we trust you? If you are who I think you are—”
“Mind your tone, boy.”
“You helped kidnap Zack. You delivered him to the Gothams and provoked this whole fight!”
The stranger turned around and cracked a tempic whip at David. The tail cut a one-inch gash on the back of his good hand.
Mia ran to his side. “No!”
“The path to progress is rarely easy,” the Pelletier told him. “Sometimes we must walk through dirt. Other times, through fire.”
His fierce blue eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t ever raise your voice at me again.”
Mia’s heart jumped in terror. She struggled to regain herself. “W-what’s your name?”
The stranger looked at her with softer eyes, though he hesitated a moment before answering.
“Semerjean.”
He flicked his hand in a lazy arc. The ceiling suddenly began to glow. The Silvers watched intently as an eight-foot disc of radiant white energy fell through the hallway. A moving portal.
Semerjean shifted into high speed and dove in headfirst. The gateway swallowed him whole before sinking through the floor grates.
Hannah stared down the empty corridor, stupefied. The man’s exit was an act of sheer lunacy, like hooking a ride on a passing comet. Even a swifter like her would have been cut in half.
The engine hissed five more times before David broke the silence. He stared down blankly at his bleeding hand.
“He, uh . . .” He closed his eyes and took a deep, stuttered breath. “He was right about one thing. The air brake upstairs has been disabled. The whole control room’s been destroyed.”
“So what now?” Hannah asked.
Mia looked into the engineer’s office, at the dead Gotham on the floor. She supposed Semerjean could have done worse to David. A lot worse.
“We go to the kitchen,” she said, in a small and distant voice. “We do exactly what he says.”
—
The moment Semerjean slipped through the portal, the bulb lights and surveillance monitors came back to life in the kitchen. The screens flickered twice before resuming their clear and steady views of the Absence.
Rebel reeled at the sight of the new status quo on the terrace. Zack and Mercy were nowhere to be found, and his cousin had been cut into bloody pieces. Someone had butchered Mink like a goddamn pig.
Ivy moved to Rebel’s side, hang-jawed. “Jesus! What happened? Where—”
She turned to Monitor 3 and screamed at the carnage in the dining room. Her brother lay sprawled on the black tile floor, a gawking corpse with a fist-size hole in his throat. “Deven!”
Gemma looked up. “Daddy?”
Ivy stumbled backward, her head shaking back and forth. “No, no, no, we can fix this.” She turned her crying eyes onto Gemma. “You can fix this. Go back to the past—”
“No,” Rebel said. There was no point and Ivy knew it. Time didn’t move in a single path. It wasn’t a chalkboard where events could be erased and overwritten. The best Gemma could do was save Mink and Bug in a branching string, and even that was futile.
Rebel reached past Gemma and panned the dining room camera. Now his wife and niece could see it clearly. Someone had drawn on the tile with Bug Sunder’s blood—a neat little symbol: a smiley face.
Ivy clenched her quivering fists. “Monster . . .”
Rebel lifted his .44 and shot the monitor. The Pelletiers didn’t have to sign their work. He knew it by heart. And their savagery was nothing, a kiss and a backrub, compared to what he was going to do to them. They’d have to invent brand-new words for the tortures he was planning.
Ivy ran after him as he rushed toward the waitstaff elevator. “Richard, no!”
He turned around in the lift and met Ivy’s gaze. His voice came out in a croaking rasp. “Go.”
The door slid closed. Ivy hurried to the other end of the kitchen and typed a password into the command laptop. Gemma could see that she was preparing for an emergency all-stop.
“What are you doing? Are we leaving?”
“Not us,” said Ivy. “You.”
“What? No! You can’t!”
“Our replacements won’t stand a chance without you. They need you. You have to guide them.”
“But you heard Rebel. He wants you to go!”
“I don’t care. If the demons are here, then this is exactly where I need to be.”
Gemma threw her arms around Ivy and, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she wept like a child. She was a misfit among her people, a shrill and ugly creature whom few people liked and even fewer understood. But her aunt Ivy was the exception. She never stopped loving Gemma, even after the Pelletiers turned her world upside-down and filled her heart with hatred.
Gemma held her tight. “Please don’t leave me.”
“We’ll be together again in the next world.” Ivy kneeled in front of her and gripped her shoulders. “But until then, you need to stay strong. Finish the war. You find every last one of those breachers and you do what needs to be done. You hear me?”
Gemma nodded her head, sniffling. “I will. I promise.”
“That’s my girl.” Ivy moved back to the laptop and summoned the air brake controls. “Get ready.”
Gemma looked to the pantry door. “Wait. What about . . . ?”
Ivy shook her head. Trillinger had poisoned Liam’s mind. Better the boy should die up here than live to carry his father’s legacy. Besides, he still had a function to serve.
She pressed a button on the keyboard. The Absence came to a bobbing halt. The moment the ship stabilized, Ivy opened a seven-foot portal on a pantry door.
“
Go, love! Now!”
Gemma jumped through the surface. Ivy willed the door shut and resumed the ship’s ascent. Nine seconds, and not a single portal to be felt from Peter or his protégé. Perfect.
Ivy pulled the gun from her holster, then shot the laptop twice. The screen exploded in a stream of sparks. No one else was getting off the Absence. Not now. Not ever.
She brushed the tears from her eyes and opened the pantry door. Liam crossed his arms impatiently. Ivy couldn’t help but marvel at how much the boy looked like Peter when he was angry.
“Can I finally come out?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His expression softened. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Can I please see my dad now?”
“Yes.” Ivy eyed her smoking pistol, then smiled weakly at Liam. “Let’s go find him.”
EIGHTEEN
Zack sat on the floor of a long-forsaken restroom, his body in revolt after two days of captivity. His legs were sore. His wrists were chafed. His spine felt like it had been twisted into a pretzel. But these were minor gripes in light of his current predicament. He was trapped in the sky on a runaway hell-saucer, still separated from his people, with no idea if they were alive or dead. For all he knew, his best friend in the world was now the woman in the nearest stall, an erratic young Gotham named Mercurial Lee.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, then anxiously looked away. “I think we should keep moving.”
“Fuck you.”
Mercy huddled on the toilet in her underwear and socks. She’d been six yards from the restroom when her trauma got the better of her and she puked on her armor. She’d stripped off every piece of it, even the clean ones.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “I should have listened to my mother. I . . .”
She covered her face with trembling hands. “God. He cut Mink to pieces.”
Zack toyed with a piece of broken floor tile, his heart still pounding from the ordeal on the terrace. Though he was grateful to Mercy for unlocking his chains, his sympathy only went so far. She’d helped Rebel kill six Golds last year, including Zack’s brother. The more he thought about it, the more tempted he was to just leave her here.
“I didn’t know he could talk,” Zack said, out of the blue.
“Who, Mink?”
“Yeah. He screamed something right before he died. I thought he was mute.”
Mercy twisted the skull ring on her middle finger. “It wasn’t an affliction. It was a choice.”
“A choice?”
“We all have to sacrifice something when we turn eighteen. He chose to give up his voice.”
Zack shook his head, scoffing. “You people are so goddamn weird.”
He heard a faint noise outside the restroom door, a scraping sound, like someone dragging their feet.
“I know it won’t mean anything,” Mercy said. “But I’m sorry for—”
“Hold it.”
Zack stood up on watery legs. Mercy peeked at him through the door crack. “What are you doing?”
“Shhhh.”
The bathroom door swung open. Zack’s heart skipped a beat at the tall, skinny redhead who stepped inside. “Holy shit . . .”
Amanda blinked at him dazedly. “Zack?”
He had never seen her this shaken up. Her skin was white. Her eyes were glazed. She walked toward him with a slow, shambling gait, as if she’d just been killed and resurrected.
Zack cupped her face. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I . . .”
Her memories came flooding back, until she could recall every painful minute of the last three days. This whole nightmare had started with her and Zack in the basement. It all began with a kiss.
Zack let out a soft, pained chuckle as Amanda yanked her hand away from him. “It’s all right,” he told her. “You can touch me.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded his head, his gaze lingering anxiously around his reflection. It felt like a hundred years ago that Semerjean visited him in a mirrored room and expounded on his family’s objections. It was never about sex, you idiot. Amanda has to receive her next lover willingly.
Amanda wrapped Zack in a delirious hug. “God,” she cried. “Oh my God. I never thought I’d see you again.”
Zack returned the embrace, wincing. She felt so good in his arms that he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he was imagining this. Maybe he’d wake up to learn that he’d never left the mirror room. It was just the Pelletiers screwing with him, teasing him.
He looked into the mirror and saw the state of her back. “Holy shit. Amanda!”
Her jacket and shirt had been torn all the way to her bra strap. Her skin was covered in huge purple bruises. Even more disturbing was the two-inch silver disc that had been embedded at the base of her spine.
“What happened?”
Amanda checked her back in the mirror as best she could. “I don’t know. I was standing with Peter when everything went crazy. I don’t know where he is.”
“What about the others?”
“I don’t know.” She fished through her pockets. “I can’t find my phone. It must have . . .”
She turned her head and saw someone looking at her through a crack in a stall door—an almond-shaped eye, slathered in heavy black makeup. That was all Amanda needed to recognize her.
“You!”
Zack grabbed her arm. “Whoa, whoa! Wait!”
“Wait!” Mercy yelled.
Amanda reached for her with a thick white tendril, just as Mercy fired her solis. The tempis vanished like a popped balloon.
Zack held Amanda back. “Stop! Stop! She’s all right.”
“All right? I know her.”
“She’s not with them anymore. She’s done.”
Mercy stepped out of the stall in her faded black skimpies. Amanda studied her through a squint. “You quit the Gothams.”
“I quit the mission,” Mercy clarified.
“And you’re half-naked because . . . ?”
“My clothes are covered in hunkey.”
“What the hell is ‘hunkey’?”
“You’ve been here months. Learn the lingo.”
“How about I just throw you out a window?”
Zack was about to intervene when the bathroom door creaked open again. Peter leaned in and scowled at the trio inside.
“You’re making more noise than the devil in here.”
“Peter!” Amanda hurried toward him. “I was worried about you. Where were you?”
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The others could see his awful state. His cheek was bruised. His clothes were dusty in some places and shredded in others. A thin trail of blood dribbled down the side of his head.
“Don’t rightly know,” he told Amanda. “I got knocked out in one place and woke up in another.”
He grinned exhaustedly at Zack. “Hello, stranger.”
Zack stared at his feet and wrung his hands despondently. “You guys shouldn’t have come. I tried to warn you.”
“We knew. Didn’t stop us.” Peter took off his windbreaker and offered it to Mercy. “I know you won’t believe me, but I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Eat shit.” She snatched the jacket from him. “Last time I saw you, you put a gun to my head.”
“You think you don’t deserve it?” Amanda asked her.
“I think it doesn’t matter. We’re not getting off this ship alive.”
“Yes we are,” Peter told her. “No one else is dying today.”
Mercy threw on the windbreaker and zipped it up to the top. “Big words from a guy who doesn’t know what’s happening. You don’t even know who’s here.”
/> “What are you talking about?
“Your son,” Zack said. “He’s up here with us.”
Peter’s arms dropped to his sides. He turned to Mercy, red-faced. “Liam’s here?”
“Wasn’t my idea,” she said. “Ivy wanted leverage against you, so—”
Peter hollered in rage and tore a paper towel dispenser from the wall. Mercy raised her hands defensively. “I was against it! We all were, even Rebel. But Ivy insisted. She swore she’d only use him as a last resort.”
Peter glared at Mercy’s reflection. His voice came out in a guttural rasp. “Where is he?”
“Last I knew, down in the kitchen.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
Mercy recoiled at Peter’s approach. Though his temples still throbbed with angry veins, he stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “It’s all right,” he said. “You’re not the one I’m mad at. In fact, I owe you an apology.”
“For what? The gun thing?”
“That,” Peter said. “And this.”
He drew a stun chaser from his pocket and fired it at her. Mercy convulsed on her feet for five long seconds before collapsing to the floor.
Zack gaped at Peter. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Had to.”
“She switched sides!”
“And she could have just as easily switched back,” Peter told him. “She’s called Mercurial for a reason.”
Amanda crouched to the floor and checked Mercy’s vitals. “He’s right, Zack. We can’t trust her.”
“If we leave her here, she’ll die.”
“We won’t.”
Peter scooped her up and slung her over his back. Though his expression had cooled, his wrath was clearly still bubbling beneath the surface. He had Mercy on his shoulder but murder in his eyes.
“Let’s go.”
—
Contrary to public belief, most aerstraunts didn’t have a traditional cockpit. There were no uniformed pilots, no navigators, no captains barking orders at a fast-moving crew. The ships were so self-sufficient that all they required was a capable technician. The “bridge” was simply a small, windowed room with a chair and a computer, and even that was unnecessary. Flight conductors could control the saucer from any part of the ship, even the bathroom. They only needed a laptop with the right peripherals, software, and access keys.