by Phil Tucker
Armando’s eyes were as wide as they would go. He blinked. “You think you can talk to me like that?”
“Yeah, I think so. And I think somebody should have a long time ago.” Selah felt a fevered mix with of excitement and fury. “Your sister dies because of Dust and for once in your useless life you decide to do something right and quit selling poison. Now you’re reaping the whirlwind. Now you’re paying the consequences for all your sins, and you’re crying like a baby.” Selah shook her head. “Grow up and be a man. Quit blaming Chico and take responsibility for your life.”
Armando laughed, looked over at the guys next to him, and shot Selah in the stomach. Or tried to. She saw his finger begin to squeeze the trigger. Saw his jaw tighten. Felt her body spin away before she consciously realized what was going on. The gun went off with a deafening boom and the world snapped back into normal speed. Selah slipped behind Armando before he could react and slammed the sole of her foot into his left calf, driving him down to one knee but arresting his fall by slipping her forearm around his thick neck. She pressed down on his calf and hauled back on his neck and nearly tore his head off.
Armando immediately began to gargle and raised the gun to shoot at her but she slapped it out of his hand. “Any you fools try something, I break his neck,” she hissed at the other men, who had all picked up guns from the main table. “I mean it. Put those guns down.”
After they complied, Selah took her foot off Armando’s calf and booted him hard in the ass, sending him sprawling to the ground. He pushed up onto all fours, choking and hacking, and then turned a venomous look at her.
“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you,” she said. “Chico, you ready? Let’s get out of here.”
“No,” said Chico, his voice shaking. “I’m staying.”
“You’re what? Are you crazy?”
“No.” Chico smoothed down his shirt and adjusted his glasses. His hands were shaking badly. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay and help Armando as long as he needs it. If I give up now, I give up on everybody I’m fighting for in this neighborhood.” He looked at Armando. “The Culebras aren’t going to let me run my centers, or work with the NGOs, or try to make any changes. Only Armando here was brave enough to try something new. Only he had the vision, the heart. I know what he felt when his sister died. I heard the words he spoke. I believe in him. We need to succeed. Maybe you’ve already made enough of a difference. Maybe we can still pull this off. I’m not going to run.”
Armando climbed to his feet and stared at Chico. He fought for implacability, but Selah saw a dozen emotions raging in his eyes. Selah looked from one to the other, and shook her head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” She turned to Armando. “And you still have a chance to make things right. Get out there and finish what I started. If I can, I’ll come back. I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” said Chico, with as much grave courtesy as he could muster. “Good luck.”
Selah looked at Armando. He was rubbing at his neck and looking at the ground now, a band of muscle appearing and disappearing over his jaw. After a grudging moment he looked up, and she gave him a nod. His eyes gleamed and he looked away, so Selah turned and walked out the front door.
Getting back into the Core proved easier than getting out. Selah watched the I-5 entrance for an hour with growing impatience, trying to think of a plan, only to make a snap decision at the sight of an eighteen-wheeler approaching the gate in the Wall. She scrambled up onto the top of a shack, the iron roofing groaning alarmingly under her, and when the truck passed her by with its green One World NGO logo along its side, she leaped and landed firmly on the cargo’s top. She lay down, spread-eagled, and simply rode the truck into the Core. Listening in from above, she heard the same perfunctory examination that had accompanied her first entrance into the city. The driver claimed to be bringing in supplies, and the soldier on duty was happy to just wave him through. No questions about the timing of the delivery, no request to examine the cargo.
They rumbled along I-5, and Selah tried to recall the route to the Huntington Gardens. It was the last place she’d seen Theo, and where she’d start searching for him. She had no idea where else to begin. The eighteen-wheeler rumbled toward LA’s downtown. Only as it slowed to navigate painfully around an abandoned car did she slip off and fall lightly to the road.
Selah stood and looked around. She needed a car, but there was no traffic. She thought of waiting and flagging down a ride, but who would stop for a stranger in a vampire-infested city? Selah looked at the glittering and dark towers of downtown, and tried to recall: how exactly had she gotten from Huntington to Echo Park? She’d driven down the length of Huntington Drive all the way to downtown, and then taken the 101 west. Which meant she should be able to find the Drive and run up it all the way to Huntington. It’d taken her about five minutes to reach downtown at a hundred miles an hour. Selah closed her eyes as she did the math. That meant it was about ten miles away. She gazed at the depths of shadow that cloaked the core, heard distant yells, a faint spiraling laugh. She had no choice.
Selah set off at a jog. She left I-5 behind and took a street heading north, slowly picking up speed as she tapped a seemingly endless reservoir of energy. She pushed forward into a sprint, arms pumping, the tips of her shoes barely touching the ground. One block, five blocks, ten. She crossed avenues, streets, passed endlessly varied buildings. She felt as if she could run forever. Eventually she ran past what looked like a block party, some two hundred people dancing to live music on stage, lurid lights illuminating the outdoor event. She slowed, stopped. The music was invigorating, but better yet were the cars parked around the party. It took little work to take the keys from a driver as he emerged from his vehicle, a tap to the back of his head causing his knees to buckle, and as he tried to gain his feet Selah slipped into his ride and drove away.
She drove for five minutes before slowing down. The area had started to look familiar. She studied the street, the intersections, and realized why. This was where she’d driven out in the Porsche just the night before. One block further should be Oxford Street, and then the Gardens. She’d made it. Selah laughed, delighted, and left Huntington Drive and drove the last block to the wall of trees and bushes that kept the Gardens private.
It took little effort to scale it and drop down onto the wild grass. Selah paused and listened. Silence. No sign of the vampires. She moved deeper into the grounds, and then circled off to the left, in the direction where she thought the Japanese garden was. Further in, the bulk of the Gallery building loomed ahead, but it was dark and silent.
The Japanese garden looked abandoned under the light of the stars, the small waterfall filling the air with its soothing, plangent sound. Selah hesitated at the top of the bowl. What if he wasn’t here? Why should he be? Then she spotted a solitary figure standing on the apex of the curved bridge, and felt nearly dizzy with relief.
“Theo?” Her voice was little more than a whisper. She cleared her throat, and tried again. “Theo?”
The figure turned and looked up at her. “Selah?”
“Theo!” She hurried down and to the base of the bridge. He walked down its curved side to meet her, and she stopped shy of giving him a hug. “I can’t believe you’re here. I need your help.”
He lifted her chin so that he could study her face. His brows furrowed, and then he pressed his fingertips to her throat. “You’re still human.”
“Yes. I am. But—not for much longer.” She had so much to tell him. Gone was her sense of regal dominance, her predatory superiority. Looking up into Theo’s eyes, she felt like Selah once more, felt her age, her insecurities. Here was somebody who could help. That was equal to any task set before him. “Louis told me about the cure. He said that I had to eat the heart of someone who loved me. But Cloud—he found out and ran away. I guess he thought—it doesn’t matter, because I just got a message from him. He’s been taken. Arachne’s got him. She must want revenge for my setting her up for the C
olonel’s murder. I don’t know, but I need to free him, I need to see him, to tell him—tell him that I would never—that he has nothing to fear, that …” Selah slowed down, and stopped. She’d been babbling.
“Cloud’s with Arachne.”
“Yes. At Griffith Observatory, wherever that is.”
Theo crossed his arms. “So it was you and not Arachne who killed the Colonel.”
“Yes.” Selah forced herself to not look away. “He was Arachne’s main dealer. Louis demanded I do it. The Colonel said something huge was about to go down, like tonight or tomorrow night, and that she’d arranged to talk to him. He thought I was her.”
Theo nodded, and walked past her, along the path. He turned after a few steps and back to her. “And you are sure you want to save Cloud?”
“Of course!”
“Why?” His tone stopped her. Not cold, not cutting, but simply curious.
“Why? Because … because I need to.” Selah felt her face flush. “I love him.”
“Do you? Love him?” His eyes burned hers from where he stood.
She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Did she? Actually love him? She examined her heart, and couldn’t be sure. She felt exhilarated, alive, protective, aflame with righteous fury and a craving for violence, but love? Tenderness? Those were but faint presences beneath the other more emotions. Was that the vampire curse, dampening her feelings for Cloud?
“Yes,” she said, “I do.” She hid her uncertainty, buried it deep.
Theo held her eyes and nodded once more. “All right.” He turned and continued walking. “We won’t simply run to the Observatory. It could be a trap.”
“Right,” said Selah, moving quickly after him. “That’s what I thought.”
“I need to confront her myself. I spent last night trying to find out where she was. Nobody would give me a direct answer. She’s also been moving around a lot ever since you killed the Colonel. But now we know where she is.” He stopped walking and looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ll help you free Cloud as long as doing so brings me to Arachne. There needs to be a reckoning. I need to face her.”
His voice was as unyielding as steel. Selah closed the distance between them. You almost couldn’t tell he was talking about the burning focal point of his unlife, his wife—Sethe—now Arachne, queen of the LA vampires. He looked through her, eyes wide but not seeing. Selah held her breath, struck by how portentous this meeting between Theo and Arachne was, how many long centuries it had been coming, and nodded.
“We should get going,” he said. “She’ll be expecting you to come alone. We’ll come in fast and hard and surprise them. Between your growing power and my own, I doubt any of them will be able to stand in our way.”
“Yes,” said Selah. A single flame of determination flared within her. If this was to be her last night, if these were to be her last moments as a human, then she would sacrifice everything she had to get Cloud out of LA. To free him, and send him back out into the world to keep fighting. “Good. Let’s go.”
Chapter Nineteen
They drove in Theo’s car. He’d picked up a beautiful graphite-gray Audi with all the latest tech. Parked in the dark shadows of a random backstreet, they studied the Griffith Observatory on its windshield, turning the view around and around as they debated the best approach. It was located high in the Hollywood Hills, with a stunning view over the city. A road wound through the hills to a parking lot behind it, beyond which was a broad, grass-covered stretch with a monumental column in its center before the front doors. That was such an obvious line of attack that Selah briefly argued in favor of it. Theo, however, refused to simply drive up, and pointed out how they could park in the neighborhood below the cliffs, climb up through the scrub to the base of the Observatory’s main dome, and scale the wall right up to the walkway that surrounded it.
“See here? There are a number of doors leading into the dome. We slip inside, come in through the back.”
Selah frowned at the screen. Zoomed in and frowned some more. The building was painted a stunning white, with three gray domes arranged across it, the main one twice as large as the smaller two that flanked it. There were observation decks, ramps, staircases and windows everywhere. It would be hard to remain hidden. Perhaps Theo was right. She shrugged, unsure, and finally nodded. “All right. Once we get inside, we’ll have to move fast. Louis said she had some forty or so vampires in her gang. Even the two of us can’t take that many.”
“No?” Theo looked at her, amused. “Since when are you an expert on mass vampire warfare?”
“You think we can?”
Theo laughed, the sound rich, warm. “Where did I find you? Two versus forty? Of course not. Yet you make it sound as if it would be close. Have you grown so dangerous since Miami, Selah Brown?”
Selah looked soberly at him, and then out the passenger window. The conversation had lost its humor.
“Regardless,” said Theo, “you’re right. We go in fast. You find Cloud, and I’ll find Arachne. I won’t need a long conversation with her. Just seeing her should be enough. Enough confirmation, that is. For what I’ll need to do.”
“Isn’t she as old as you are? Won’t she be as strong?”
“Not if I catch her by surprise,” said Theo, voice low. “I don’t aim to give her much warning.”
Selah nodded. It was a vague plan, but how much better could they do? They would improvise as they went. Theo put the car in gear and drove out. He took a different route so that they didn’t pass the SUVs from the night before. Selah was almost disappointed; she felt a strange urge to show off to him, point out casually how she’d caused that accident, elaborate on the chase of the night before. As soon as she became aware of that desire, she crushed it.
Theo drove with calm precision, following the illuminated roads on the Audi’s windshield. From where Selah sat, the subtle blue highlighting was off-kilter; the screen was aligning it for Theo, not her.
They drove in silence. Selah sought for something to say, to start a conversation, but everything sounded inane. They were driving to a confrontation with the woman who he’d held as a beacon for all that was good and lost in the world for over two centuries, and to most probably kill her. What could he be interested in other than his own morbid thoughts? She turned her thoughts to Cloud. His dream of their working together to start a revolution. He’d have to do it alone now. Was he hurt? Afraid? Fear warred with fury. If they’d hurt him. Selah allowed herself to imagine various rescue scenarios, each culminating in a tragic farewell kiss as she left him someplace safe and retreated into the night. What would Cloud say? Would he apologize for doubting her? She decided she didn’t care. It didn’t matter, not now. Selah sank into her chair and watched the ruins of LA pass them by. A fire burned somewhere close, and the stink of it, pungent and tarry, infiltrated even the Audi’s air conditioning. She scanned the rooftops for the conflagration but never saw it. Somewhere, for somebody, the world was burning.
They cut around downtown. Theo muttered something about it not being safe, but Selah didn’t ask further. Nowhere was safe, not really; thus for downtown to need avoiding, it had to be dangerous indeed. They eased into Hollywood, sliding ever west. The hills rose up before them at the end of the avenue. They whipped past homeless waifs, drug addicts, people lost in their own misery as they lay on the curb, not even raising their heads to watch the car go by. A lost tribe of humanity, abandoned here on the shores of LA, washed up and with nowhere to go.
Eventually, they made their way higher into the foothills. Theo cut the lights and drove in the dark, the illuminated windshield still picking out the road. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he parked. Dark mansions around them, large and hidden behind their walls. Dry trees, spindly and gaunt. Selah craned her head and looked up and out of her window: the flank of a mountain rose in grooved, rain-carved slopes through scrub and dry bushes to the base of a large building of shocking white, illuminated by spotlights that made it seem
a spaceship, a mirage, an Art Deco hallucination against the backdrop of night.
“They got it lit up for us,” said Theo. “Welcoming us with wide-open arms.”
“How do some places have power and others … never mind.” They were just barely high enough here in the foothills to have a restricted glimpse of the neighborhood below, and it was for the most part smothered in darkness. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Theo nodded and killed the engine. “Ready? Follow me on the way up.”
“All right,” said Selah. She felt the pulse of excitement course through her as always, but it felt alien, misplaced. As if she’d drunk too much coffee and was left with the antsy impatience and fevered energy of the over-caffeinated. She cracked open her door and got out. Looked up at the Observatory. It was beautiful.
Theo stepped off the road and slipped over the wall of a sprawling Spanish mansion that had its back to the slope. Selah followed him. Climbing the wall was disturbingly easy, even now. She boosted herself to the top, swung her legs over, jeans rasping against the red tile, and dropped to the dry dirt beyond. Theo was already padding forward, heading toward the back. Selah moved after him, sticking to the darker shadows along the wall. The moon was just rising. Soon it would light up the world with its silver glow.
They went over the back wall, and then Theo began to move quickly, silently, seeming to float up the rough flank of the mountain, eschewing the several broad paths that were cut into the slope and moving in a straight line toward the Observatory. The gradient steepened, and soon Selah found herself digging her toes into the dirt, reaching out occasionally to grab a wizened branch to help haul herself up. Still, it was effortless; she might as well have been drifting along a flat path, distracted and not needing to watch where she put her feet. Her body moved with its own instinct, seemed to know where to go and how to move. Selah felt alien within her own body. She kept pace with Theo, and when he stopped, she realized they had arrived.