“I don’t know, mami.” Emilio’s voice grew quiet. “I just don’t know.”
As the pair stared up at the glass and steel monstrosity, Steven clued in on what they were talking about. Twice in the battle with the Black Queen, Emilio astride Rocinante had somehow managed to leap from one place to another in an instant. These jumps had always been at most a few feet, though, and Steven more than understood Emilio’s hesitation. Still, time was scarce.
“Give it a shot,” Steven said. “It’s the best idea we’ve got.” He glanced skyward, afraid either might see the doubt in his eyes. “Take Lena with you and watch each other’s backs.”
Emilio climbed onto the ivory and silver motorcycle and revved the engine. “I’ll try, but I’m not even sure how I did it before.” He wiped the rain from his face. “I needed to be somewhere, and then I was there. Simple as that.”
“Right now, we need you on top of that building,” Steven said. “More importantly, the Rook needs you. Just have faith, and for God’s sake, be careful.”
“We’re on it.” Emilio’s eyes narrowed. “You guys are coming too, right?”
Steven gestured at the tower’s base. “As fast as the elevators will take us.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Audrey added. “Promise.”
“Time’s wasting, papi,” Lena said. “Let’s do this.”
Leaping on the back of the bike, she wrapped her lithe arms around Emilio’s chest. The faintest glimmer of a smile washed all fear from the boy’s features. Emilio again revved the motor and he and Lena rocketed toward the base of the King tower.
The next few moments were a blur of motion, obscured by the driving rain that swept down between the twin skyscrapers. The roar of Rocinante’s engine shook Steven’s teeth as the bike sped headlong toward the columns that formed the building’s foundation. Steven’s every muscle tensed as he prayed their mad gambit didn’t end in disaster.
With less than ten feet remaining between the motorcycle’s headlight and the tower’s unyielding stone, Rocinante vanished in a blinding flash, replaced by an ivory steed. Not slowing an iota, the stallion leaped to the side of the building, easily clearing three stories, and sprinted up the side of the tower as if gravity were merely a suggestion. In a second, the horse was out of sight, the sound of hooves on steel and glass drowned out by yet another surge of hail and rain.
“That was…” Archie looked on, eyes wide and mouth agape.
“Awesome.” Audrey stared skyward in disbelief.
Steven headed for the door. “We can all be impressed with ourselves later, but right now, Lena and Emilio are all alone up there with God knows what waiting for them. Come on.”
Audrey and Archie followed Steven to the tower’s nearest entrance, a large revolving door that opened onto a two-story, glass-enclosed atrium at the building’s base. In stark contrast to the balmy humidity outside, the air filling the chamber was cool and dry, if not sterile in scent.
The large foyer opened onto four hallways, each of which led to a bank of elevators positioned at the building’s center. The far left elevator stood open and empty. Steven stepped inside and reached for the button to the top floor when a subtle but familiar stab of ice pierced him to the core. He pulled the pawn icon from his pocket and found it glowing like a fallen star.
“They’re here.” Clutching his ribs as the stitch in his side flared, Steven found the same pain etched in his companions’ features.
“What’s happening to us?” The strain in Audrey’s voice was unmistakable.
“That hot poker in your side?” Steven rested a hand just below his ribs. “That’s the enemy.” He took a breath. “Remember that feeling. It’ll keep you alive.” He held the icon before him, and with two muttered syllables, the shining marble figure disappeared from his hand only to be replaced an instant later by a long shield as his clothing shifted to the garb of the Pawn.
“Go ahead,” Steven said, the pain in his side already fading. “Shift into your work clothes.” He pressed the button for the twenty-fifth floor. “Once your icon knows you’re ready for battle, the pain eases up pretty quickly.”
Audrey was first. The marble icon held gingerly between her fingers vanished as her waterlogged street clothes shifted into the more regal raiment of the White Queen. Opaque mist billowed from beneath her gown as the jewels encrusted along her platinum and silver tiara shone with an inner fire. The silver-white radiance coalesced into a concentrated sphere of light that orbited her head like a small moon. The terrible juxtaposition of beauty and power manifest in the girl’s graceful form left Steven speechless.
“Ready,” Audrey said. She attempted to force a smile, but the result was at best a consigned grimace. “What do you think, Archie? Better in person?”
“You look radiant, my dear.” Archie sighed, clutching the bishop icon tight to his chest, his fingers trembling around the shimmering hunk of marble. “My turn, I suppose.”
The silver nimbus of light surrounding the bishop icon pulsed in time with the drone of the pouch. As the radiance crept up Archie’s arm, a peculiar expression came across the priest’s face, puzzled disorientation alternating with flashes of razor clarity. Steven reached out to touch Archie’s shoulder and the priest’s own hand shot out and grabbed Steven’s wrist.
As if the Devil himself had come for his soul, a wide-eyed Archie launched into an unintelligible deluge of words, the verbiage not unlike the singsong chanting that had filled the ICU at the time of Lena’s healing. Louder and faster with each breath, the priest’s frenzied speech soon left the realm of forgotten language, however, and settled on a thick exaggeration of Archie’s usually subtle Creole accent.
“Faire attention à Le Fou. Faire attention à Le Fou. Faire…”
Before he could repeat his bizarre warning a third time, Archie slumped to the floor, his knees buckling beneath him as if he were a puppet with cut strings. Steven leaped forward, catching Archie before his head hit the wall, and lowered the priest’s body to the elevator floor. Audrey cradled Archie’s head in her lap while Steven attempted to bring him around.
“Archie.” Steven slapped him across the face. “Can you hear me?”
Another slap and Archie started out of his momentary delirium. His body shook as if he were waking from a nightmare. “Audrey?” he said weakly.
“Welcome back.” Audrey smiled down at the suddenly frail face resting in her lap. “Are you all right?”
“That… remains to be seen.” With Steven’s help, Archie pulled himself to his feet and stood, still unsteady as the bishop icon in his fist pulsed faster and faster until its blinding silver radiance filled the elevator car with light.
“Thank you.” Archie let go of Steven’s arm. “But I must stand on my own two feet if I am to be worthy of my position on the Board.”
Steven stepped back and gave Archie some space. Despite the priest’s current youthful appearance, at his core was a man old enough to be his grandfather who deserved his respect.
The brilliance filling the car grew brighter with each passing floor, forcing Steven and Audrey to avert their eyes. As the light faded and their vision cleared, they found a very different Archibald Lacan.
The priest’s soaked shirt and pants were replaced by a bishop’s vestment, a gleaming white rochet over an ivory soutane, its sleeves adorned with silver thread. A miter rested upon his head, white and silver like his robes and covered with strange sigils Steven took to be some sort of ancient runes. In his hand, a staff of light poplar resided, its slender length terminating in a symbol resembling a Celtic cross ensconced within a crescent moon.
At that moment, the elevator doors opened onto the twenty-fifth floor.
“Shall we?” asked the White Bishop, his deep baritone reverberating through the space as he stepped into the floor’s darkened hallway.
The trio made their way down the dim passage with Steven in the lead, Audrey close behind, and Archie watching their collective rear. They rush
ed up the stairs leading to the roof and found the steel door at the top ajar and the landing waterlogged. Steven put a finger to his lips and pushed open the door.
The three of them stepped out into the storm as one: Pawn, Bishop, and Queen.
A spike in the pouch’s insistent drone confirmed the target of their search was nearby while the continued pang in Steven’s side let him know they were far from alone. Blinded by the dozens of lights that illuminated the King tower’s lattice crown, not to mention the escalating rain and gusts of wind, Steven perked his ears for any sign of life. Above the din of the storm, he could just make out the rumble of an engine to his forward right. Wrapping his cloak tightly about him, he headed in the direction of the sound with Audrey and Archie close behind.
Not far from the corner of the roof, its coarse motor howling like an injured beast, Rocinante rested precariously against one of the latticework uprights. The bike appeared intact, though Emilio and Lena were nowhere in sight. Peering through the rain, Steven cursed under his breath. A faint glow a few feet from the downed motorcycle emanated from Emilio’s lance and Lena’s mace, the pair of weapons lying crosswise next to two crumpled piles of white cloth.
Steven righted the chrome and ivory machine and stroked its warped handlebar. “Don’t worry, boy,” he muttered, his voice barely audible above the downpour. “We’ll find them.”
Archie’s downcast gaze and Audrey’s horror-stricken expression spoke volumes. “I know this looks bleak,” Steven said, “but we have to assume Lena and Emilio are alive. From everything Grey’s told me, they’re off limits till the Game begins. For now, though, it’s up to us.” He peered into the rain-drenched darkness that surrounded them.
“The three of us could probably cover more ground if we spread out, but I think we’d better stick together. I have a nasty feeling we’re being watched. These bastards would probably like nothing more than to pick us off one at a time.” Steven assumed a low crouch and Audrey and Archie followed suit. “Eyes open, everyone.”
The cloaked trio moved into a tight wedge and swept the roof’s perimeter, though the deluge made it difficult to see more than a few feet in any direction. They’d barely covered half the roof’s extent when Steven threw up his hands in frustration.
“This is pointless,” he said in a harsh whisper. “I can’t see anything.”
“Patience, Steven.” Archie’s gaze dropped to the droning pouch at Steven’s side. “The Rook is clearly still here somewhere.”
“We’ve got to keep looking.” Audrey pulled close. “What else can we do?”
Before Steven could answer, a form darted from behind a nearby air conditioning vent. The sprinting shape sent the pouch into an ear-piercing caterwaul.
“Stop!” Steven shouted.
“Leave me alone!” came a deep voice barely intelligible above the pounding storm.
Steven touched Audrey’s shoulder, but she was already a step ahead of him. A tendril of white mist shot from beneath her feet, caught the runner about his midsection, and dragged him back. The image of a doomed fly snagged midair by a frog’s facile tongue flashed across Steven’s mind’s eye as Audrey dropped her quarry in a heap at their feet. Dressed in a coat and tie and drenched to the skin, the man stared up at them, his gaze more fearful than angry.
“Who the hell are you?” The man’s thick Polish accent cut through the sound of the rain as he struggled against the palpable haze that held him inert. “Let me go.”
“Keep it down,” Steven whispered. “We’re not safe up here.”
“No shit,” the man said. “And what do you mean, ‘we’?”
Steven let out a grim chuckle and signaled for Audrey to let him up.
At the White Queen’s command, the mists dissipated. The stranger came to his feet and eyed his three captors with suspicion. An impressive cut of a man, the newcomer towered over all of them a good four inches and his broad shoulders spoke of someone who knew his way around the inside of a gym. Unsteady on his feet, he stumbled forward and nearly knocked Steven over. Even soaked to the bone, the reek of alcohol coming off the man turned Steven’s stomach. Still, the pouch screamed its fervent endorsement from its master’s scorched side.
Without a doubt, they had found their Rook.
“Listen.” Steven shook the man’s shoulders. “You don’t know me, and you’ve got no reason to listen to anything I have to say, but here it is. My friends and I have been looking for you, and we’re not the only ones. I have no idea what possessed you to head to the top of a skyscraper in the middle of a lightning storm, but it’s probably the only reason you’re still alive. The others looking for you, they want you dead, and unless I’m way off base, they’re up here somewhere with us.” He came nose-to-nose with the man. “Understand if they find you, they will end you without a thought.”
The man’s eyes cut to one side. “Like the two kids on the bike?”
The slurred words chilled Steven to the bone. “You saw them? Where are they? What happened to them?”
The flurry of metallic wings at Steven’s chest answered his question all too well.
“I happened to them.”
Steven hurled himself at Audrey and their newfound Rook before the taunt was complete, the sound of the Black Queen’s icy voice spurring him like Pavlov’s bell. The trio landed in a tangle of arms and legs, leaving Archie alone to face the full fury of the Queen’s assault.
Scrambling back to his feet, Steven spun around in time to see the air around Archie erupt in dark flame. A kaleidoscope of images flashed through his mind—the immolated security guard in Chicago, the black arrow’s near miss in Baltimore, Audrey’s screams as she burned helpless in her bed, Lena’s broken form after her first encounter with the Queen, the mangled motorcycle resting not thirty yards away.
Dammit. Not Archie too.
Steven summoned the pike and turned to face the woman who had in their three encounters become more than merely an adversary, but the very definition of nemesis. Surprisingly, Archie was holding his own, but there was no way he could last against the power of the Queen’s flames. The silver ambience cast by his staff’s headpiece shielded him from the brunt of her attack, but despite the rain, his robe already smoldered in the heat.
“I’ve got this,” Archie shouted. “Get them out of here.”
The Queen shot a wicked smile in Steven’s direction as a river of fire swept out from beneath her feet, heading directly for Audrey and the Rook. Before Steven could move, Archie stepped into the path of the flame and brought his staff down upon the groundswell of fire, forcing the serpentine inferno away from them and toward the high wall that enclosed the diamond shaped rooftop.
“Go,” Archie screamed as a twenty-foot section of concrete wall disintegrated into obsidian flame. “I’ll hold her as long as I can.”
Steven pulled Audrey to her feet, a different kind of pang hitting his side as he met her frightened gaze. “Look. I’ve got to get this guy out of here, but Archie isn’t going to last long against the Queen.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Help him, but for God’s sake, be careful.”
Despite the rain, wind, and flames that surrounded them, Audrey managed a quick nod and a forced smile before turning her attention on the Queen.
The Rook, already on his feet, looked on in wide-eyed disbelief. “What the hell is all of this? Who are you people?”
“There’s no time.” Steven grabbed the man’s arm. “We have to go.”
“But—”
The whisper of shaft and fletching piercing the deluge ended in a sickening thunk of stone meeting flesh. The Rook cried out in agony, a black arrow protruding from his left shoulder, and lurched to one side.
Steven spotted a flash of movement along the latticework above their heads just before a second arrow buzzed down from above and embedded its head in the Rook’s thigh. He brought up his shield to protect the defenseless man, though it was too little, too late.
“Your luck couldn’t hold out forev
er, Steven Bauer.” The Black Queen laughed as a third arrow flew in from a different angle and struck its target’s muscular arm. “And if I’ve learned one thing from you, it’s to never underestimate the effectiveness of a well-played Pawn.” Her mocking voice cut the storm like a blade. “Wahnahtah, finish him.”
At the Queen’s command, a hail of arrows flew down from above, as if the storm had developed razor tips. Steven leaped in front of the wounded man with shield held high, but despite his best efforts, three more arrows found their mark. The threefold impact sent the man staggering, his stumbling course leading him dangerously near the interruption in the wall left by the Queen’s previous attack.
Steven spun around, threw down his pike, and grabbed the Rook’s thrashing hand, but the man’s fingers, slick with rain and blood, slipped from his grasp, leaving him wavering at the edge of oblivion. He leaped forward to pull the man back from the brink and was driven to his knees by a searing impact between his shoulder blades.
Grey’s voice echoed in his mind. “As Pawn, your shield will protect you from any attack from the front, but you must ever watch your back.”
Struck breathless, Steven’s chest throbbed as if he’d been impaled with a railroad spike as a high-pitched war cry from above pierced the storm’s fury. Clambering to his feet as black shafts of death continued to rain down all around him, Steven threw down the shield and leaped forward, getting his fingers around the man’s collar.
“Stay with me,” he grunted through the pain. “We’ve got to—”
A second arrow hit Steven square in the back, forcing the remainder of air from his lungs. His vision suddenly filtered through a crimson haze, he jerked his head around and caught one last glimpse of Audrey’s terrified gaze before his legs finally went out from beneath him. Her scream, the Black Queen’s laughter, and the pounding rain all faded into nothingness as he and the Rook fell from the edge and out into the raging storm.
Pawn's Gambit Page 28