“It’s an apartment building. There’s a terrace about halfway up. Corbin and Nod are on the terrace. They aren’t alone. I can’t see through Nod’s eyes. What the hell? It’s like he’s blindfolded.”
“Once we’re out, can we leave the window open so that we can get back in again?” The one they'd used to enter the Backworld corridor had closed immediately.
“Maybe. It depends on how long we're out. If there’s a convention of celestials out there and we have to run, we can get back in here. Doesn’t mean they can’t chase us, though.”
The giddiness was gone. Marley wasn’t entirely sure that everybody under her protection was safe, now. She hoped it was just the white corridor messing with her senses. But what else could she do? She could feel the pressure from the curse rising. It warped her senses, too. It made everything feel wrong. What would happen if it discharged in here? She glanced down at the dark footprints again. AT had said this place was a passage through the girders of the world.
“Wait a moment before opening the window. I want to get Tia's blessing together. Once I’m ready, we’ll go through. I’ll find Corbin and see if I can get him away from whatever’s got him, while you and the dogs go after... everything else. Distract them. We’ll move fast and bring Corbin back here. Once we’re in here, we can regroup and figure out what to do next. Since not everybody can access this place like you can, we’ll probably have at least a little bit of time.”
AT nodded, her eyes distant.
Kari said, “What do we do?”
“Watch the show. I’m going to keep you safe, so you shouldn’t have to do anything.” Marley made herself smile, and then added, despite herself, “Be careful anyhow. Stay close to me.”
Kari didn’t protest or make the face Marley expected. She just nodded, looking pale.
Marley took a deep breath and thought of Tia’s fingers pressing against her wrist. Her breath caught as the gentle wrongness of the curse faded, and caught again as she felt the magic draw on her. She inhaled again. It felt like the blessing stole a tiny bit of each breath; she was more breathless than she had been after her race to rescue Kari. But it wasn't air itself she lacked, but the energy the air brought. No, she didn’t want to maintain this any longer than necessary. Hopefully she’d find a useful way to discharge the curse on the other side of the shining window. “All right,” she said.
AT nodded and made the shining square larger, until it stretched to the floor. Then she pushed her hand into the center and twisted. The surface rippled. She took a step forward, passing through, towing them behind her.
Marley blinked; the late morning sunlight was much brighter than the directionless light of the Backworld corridor. Squinting, she took in their location. They were on a terrace that stretched across a corner of the building, partway up. It was actually divided into two levels, with a metal staircase against the same wall that contained a door into the building. The terrace itself was littered with lounge chairs, many of which had been overturned. Here and there were carefully maintained containers of shrubs and small trees. Along with the ever-present smell of smoke, there was a hint of jasmine in the air. The air on the terrace seemed clean and clear, but around the edges of the terrace, there was a thick yellow haze.
Corbin stood in the center of a circle of tumbled planters, his back to them. Just outside the circle were a handful of other figures. Marley recognized the bulky shape of Absolven right away. The others were blurred and indistinct, as if her eyes wouldn't focus on them. One of them held a long silver leash looped around a black dog’s neck; the dog lay with his head flat on the ground. It was a still tableau, although judging from the devastation, it hadn't been moments before.
Corbin spoke to Absolven. “Agreed. If you win, will you carry a message for me? A last request?”
Marley heard AT’s sharply indrawn breath. She released Kari's hand and darted forward. “Nod!” she shouted.
The black dog surged to his feet, yanking himself forward. The chain shattered, fragments of silver flashing through the air. Orange clouds detached themselves from the indistinct figures and drifted forward.
Corbin half-turned, and shouted, “No! I didn’t—”
An acrid smell of tarmac and carcinogens and exhaust overwhelmed both the wildfire smoke and the jasmine as a wisp of orange blew toward them. It turned, moving less like the wind and more like a ghost. Tendrils reached for the girls, seeming more curious than threatening.
AT whistled, and all three dogs vanished into thin air. Then they burst out of the slivers of shadows along the wall and under the deck chairs. Nod snapped at the inquisitive orange cloud right in front of them.
The orange wisps closest to Corbin’s circle moved faster, until they were sharp and jagged with speed, like a cloud of rusty razor blades. The red dog, Heart, leapt to intercept and sailed through one cloud. Bits of fur drifted to the ground behind her as one of the orange elementals shifted direction. Heart shook her head and sneezed. Her fur bristled along her back with effort. Then, starting from the tip of her nose, her body faded, until she, too, was cloudlike. Her teeth glinted and she leapt again.
Nod barked, startling Marley. He danced on his hind legs in front of her and she realized that AT was already halfway across the rooftop garden, heading to Corbin and his captors. Everybody was moving, Corbin and Absolven both bolting forward as the indistinct figures—still indistinct, despite the loss of their cloud elementals—scattered.
Nod snapped his teeth like she was an errant lamb and then whirled away to harry another of the elementals, keeping it away from her. Each of the dogs occupied an elemental, but the fights didn’t seem to be as one-sided as Marley had hoped they would be. The smell burned her nose.
Marley moved forward, pulling the children away from the elemental, and then letting them go. Theyweresafe theyweresafe theyweresafe and she almost trusted the sense of her power.
“Corbin?” called AT. He was standing inches from Absolven; the big man had his hand up, pressing it against thin air, while Corbin’s fingers twitched and moved.
He took a moment to flick a hand at AT dismissively. “Didn’t want you here, kiddo.” His fingers twitched and stuttered as he coughed, a horrible hacking sound. He gasped, “What did you bring her here for?”
“Because I can’t be in two places at once,” AT snapped. “Hey, you,” she said to Absolven. “Bugger off if you don’t want to see your own guts.”
Absolven’s gaze flicked between AT, Marley, and the children. “Hey!” said AT sharply. “We outnumber you. Go away.”
“But you are each all alone,” said Absolven.
“I don’t think so,” said AT. She stepped forward, planted her hand on the big man’s sternum, and pushed so hard she lifted him up, tossing him back a yard.
Absolven landed gracefully in a crouch. He straightened and raised his hand, beckoning at the figures behind him. They didn’t move, but the air shimmered. AT said, “Finish up fast, Corbin.”
“They put up a barrier to stop me from leaving. Us from leaving, now.” He tilted his head toward the roiling hazy wall around the edge of the terrace.
“But you can take it down.”
Corbin gave AT another impatient glance. “Not without help, or I wouldn’t still be here.”
“Well? I can provide a distraction.” AT darted forward to knock Absolven back again. This time, he was ready for her. His hand swept up, a triangular blade gleaming in his fist.
But AT trusted her, and AT was safe.
The blade’s glare became a flash and Absolven shifted off-balance as he missed his strike. AT grinned humorlessly as she kicked him.
“Ah,” said Corbin. “That's your plan.” He glanced at Marley directly for the first time. “How’s your breathing?”
Marley took a deep breath and realized that it was significantly more challenging than it had been in the Backworld. She wheezed. Corbin nodded. “They’re concentrating the toxins from the smoke and smog. They brought Absolven here
to finish me fast, but slowly will do the job as well.”
“Is there something I can do to help break this barrier?” As he coughed again, she added, “I bet my brand of help would make it easier for you to breathe. Let me—”
“Hell with that,” Corbin said. “I’m fine.” Marley stared at him in surprise. He went on. “While we’re talking, though, I might as well tell you what I found out up here. Hold on.” He tugged on something invisible.
Marley was glad she’d resisted activating her Sight; there was enough to keep track of already. The twins were behind her, and AT was harassing Absolven. The teenager grinned, surrounded by a clear halo in the thickening orange haze. The dogs were making plenty of noise elsewhere on the terrace.
“I talked to the Machine that’s helping Ettoriel and Absolven. We saw a fragment of it when Absolven showed up at Penny's.” said Corbin abruptly. “According to it, the girls represent a kind of singularity or event horizon, obscuring their projections of the future.”
“What does that even mean?” asked Marley sharply, thinking again of the vision of the swing in a post-apocalyptic L.A. “Do they know the future or not?”
Corbin gave her a pained look. “Does it matter? Ettoriel thinks they do. He might not be interested in breaking the Hush for personal gain, but he'd definitely want to save the world.”
Marley took a deep breath. “He thinks there is no future. That’s what he told me. But you said this Machine is helping him? So it could be lying, too.”
“I don’t think so. The Machines are hard—dangerous—to understand, but everything I’ve read says they have no ability to deceive.”
Marley shook her head. “I don’t—”
“Marley, look out!” shouted AT. She was getting to her feet on the far side of the roof, near the mist-cloaked figures. Absolven was moving towards Marley, hindered but not stopped by the dog trying to trip him.
“Hell,” said Corbin. “Run!” He coughed again, even as his hands seemed to blur.
Marley scanned the terrace. “Up the stairs,” she called to the girls. “Go, now!” They both took off running. She dropped the bag containing Neath at the end of Corbin’s circle, and then dashed off in a different direction, weaving between scattered outdoor furniture. It was hard to run, so much harder than it had been that morning. This time she had to fight to get enough breath.
Helpless cursing from AT drifted across the terrace, and Marley veered to avoid one of the smog clouds. She almost tripped over a hose and grabbed it as she recovered, half-turning to check on her pursuer. He wasn’t moving quickly, harried as he was by AT and the dogs, but he seemed inexorable. She backed up, watching him.
“I saw what you did with those birds at the hotel,” Marley called. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Nice and necessary are often exclusive,” the big man replied. “It is you protecting them, isn’t it?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are you working with Ettoriel?” Her fingers slid over the sprayer trigger.
“His reasons are compelling. And what I have now, he gave me.” He paused to pick up AT and toss her into a pile of chairs, then shake a dog off his wrist. He wasn't interested in hurting them any more than a man swimming upriver was trying to hurt the current, and so he made progress, simply because he was much larger than the teenage girl. Blood welled from marks all over his body, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“You mean he’s your father?” Out of the corner of Marley’s eye, she saw a pair of heads peeking over the rail on the upper level of the terrace. The girls had gotten out of the way. Good.
Absolven shook himself violently. “Don’t blaspheme, please.” Then, like a bird spontaneously taking flight, he leapt for her from twenty feet away.
Marley yelped in surprise and stumbled sideways, a chair scraping across her leg. He thumped to the ground beside her. She scrabbled at the chair and flung it toward the figure looming over her. Then she brought up the sprayer and pressed the trigger, sending a stream of pressurized water into his face. Finally, she flung the sprayer itself at him and scrambled around him on all fours, toward the staircase to the second level.
Even though he was disoriented by her rapid defense, he grabbed at her as she passed just out of reach. His nails elongated into claws; their tips combed through her hair. She flung another chair at him, not looking to see if it hit as she threw herself toward the staircase.
She had to keep thinking, but it was so hard. He was right behind her. One more lunge and he’d have her, and those talons would hurt so much more than Neath’s kitten claws. She could hear him breathing.
Halfway up the stairs, Marley clawed at her own arm, trying to force her scattered brain to recall the activation toggle Tia had set on her suppression spell. Like so.
The curse struck her. She tripped as the wrongness slammed through her and struck the stair beneath her feet. Something metal screamed and buckled. The staircase leaned and sank, and she scrambled up a few more steps on her hands and knees before the other brace tore itself loose. There was a cry and a grunt from behind her as Absolven fell with the bottom half of the staircase on top of him. Then the step Marley’s feet were on disappeared beneath her as the staircase kept on collapsing, and she was left hanging from a crumbling step by her fingers. She scrabbled for a railing that was still connected to the concrete, and it bent under her weight. Frantically, she swung herself up, gashing her forearm on the suddenly jagged metal. Then she leapt for the edge of the terrace, catching it with her fingers as the remains of the staircase fell away from the wall, red rust flaking off long bolts as they sailed past her cheek.
She hung there for a moment, distantly aware of the dogs barking, of AT shouting something, and the twins cheering her on. There was a bit of metal under her fingers, the last remnant of the staircase. Her fingernails hurt. Slowly, she braced one foot against the concrete wall and tried to figure out what would happen if she fell. Broken ankle, maybe, if there wasn’t a bunch of jagged rusting metal right beneath her. As it was, it didn’t bear contemplating.
The metal heap beneath her groaned and settled. Was it settling? Or was it moving because something was moving beneath it?
The much more human groan below her was a jolt of electricity to her spine. Without conscious effort, she rose over the edge of the terrace like a swimmer surfacing.
She crouched a few feet away from the edge, panting. Lissa came and hugged her, while Kari stayed at the railing, staring over the edge. She hugged Lissa back, then pushed herself to her feet. Her entire body ached. An exercise regimen of reading in the park wasn’t enough for fighting monsters, even if she had superpowers.
“Got it!” shouted Corbin, triumphantly. “Get them, AT!” Marley looked over the railing to see Corbin punching the air as he jumped out of his circle. The three mist-wrapped figures on the far side of the terrace spread out. AT spun, looking between Corbin and Marley, and then whistled and raced across the terrace. The dogs met her halfway, and they piled onto one misted figure.
The heap below groaned again, and slid open. Absolven stood up, unsteadily. He inspected himself before tugging a piece of shrapnel out of his arm. Then he raised his bloody face, his blue eyes meeting Marley’s.
He said something under his breath. His shape changed, and didn’t change. He was still the man, but contained within the man-shape was the griffin, and it was the griffin that cast the shadow. A hooked shadow beak opened, and the shadowy wings flared wide before flapping down heavily. Absolven flung himself up, a huge, impossible jump that had him landing on his feet on the edge of the terrace.
Marley backed away. She didn’t have a plan for this. On some level, she’d still believed in things like “people can’t fly.” She was an idiot. This terrace was smaller and there was nowhere to run. But there had to be a way off this level other than one rusty staircase.
Terror made it hard to think. The claws on Absolven’s fingers weren’t shadow claws.
“Marley?” sai
d Lissa. The fear in her voice made Marley want to throw herself at Absolven, because it was even worse than the claws.
“Hide. Don’t watch,” she said to the girls. She took a deep breath and backed up another few steps. Her chest hurt. Instead of chairs, there were ashtrays up here. “Absolven. Don’t do this. Ettoriel is wrong.”
“You and I, none of our kind should exist,” he said, his voice gentle. “There has been so much mercy granted by Heaven, granted for love. They love so deeply. And look what exchanging obedience for love has brought us. I must be better than my father. But I wish you had let them go in the beginning.”
Marley’s breath hissed between her teeth. “I have to be better than my parents, too.”
“Marley,” called Lissa again, and this time there was an insistence in her tone that overshadowed the fear. The twins stood together in the shadow of a table, hands welded together.
Kari shouted, “Go away, bad man! Go away before it wakes up and hurts you!”
There was a cracking sound, all around them. The shadow the twins stood in flooded with crimson. Absolven looked around.
Lissa shook her head. “Too late.”
-twenty-nine-
Something clanked below. There was a whirring, crashing sound and metal scraped against metal. The air shivered at the awful scratching along the wall, and then a creature formed of broken staircase structure pulled itself over the edge.
It looked like an insect, with six legs made of broken struts, and the steps and railings curved into a thorax. Its head was a tiny knot of twisted metal, barely visible behind a double pair of giant, moving mandibles made of jagged, rusted splinters.
The creature vaulted over the railing at the edge of the terrace and then stopped, shifting its legs as if it wasn’t quite sure how to use them. The mandibles moved like the grinding of gears.
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