“Sorry,” she said, breathing heavily. “I didn’t know what the new plan was, so I figured it was time to improvise.”
The ravener let out a cry as he fell to the ground, twitching. The men on the porch scattered and ran away. Raven helped Aster back to her feet.
“Thanks, you all,” Aster said shakily.
“Of course,” Zee said, drawing his own weapon.
No turning back now, Aster thought.
She kicked the doors open.
“WE’RE HERE FOR DERRICK MCCLENNON! EVERYBODY ELSE OUT!” Aster roared from behind her dustkerchief, raising her gun and firing once into the air.
Screams rose up from the crowded gambling hall at the sudden thunder. The piano player stopped abruptly. It was normal, in the Scab, to hear brawling on the streets, but not for it to spill into a fine establishment such as this. The whole interior of the gambling hall sparkled like the inside of a jewelry box, from the gold-tiled ceiling and the glittering crystal gasoliers to the polished redwood furniture and gleaming marble floors. The patrons, too, dripped with wealth: gleaming pocket watches and theomite thumb rings for the men, pearl necklaces and chains of precious gems for the women. They clung to each other in confusion and fear.
“I SAID OUT!” Aster shouted again when they all remained frozen, and she stepped to the side to leave the doorway clear, using her gun to point. “DON’T MAKE ME MAKE YOU GO.”
Finally, movement. A stampede. People pushing past them, cursing as they went.
“Shit,” Mallow murmured.
The raveners were muscling their way through the crowd. Three of them, with more coming from upstairs and outside. The group would have to take them out before they found Derrick. Aster scanned the room quickly. The bar would serve as perfect cover.
If they could get there in time.
“On me!” she said to the others, sprinting for the bar. The room was almost cleared of bystanders, and the raveners’ first bullets whizzed past them. Aster crouched low as she ran, her leg twinging with pain. Then she dove behind the bar, scrambling on hands and knees over the sticky floor. The others tumbled after her. Shots rang out above them, shattering the glasses on the back wall and cracking the marble siding.
“Stay low!” Aster ordered desperately, looking back to make sure they had all made it. Mallow, Clementine, Raven, Zee—
“Tansy!” Mallow shouted. Tansy had tripped ducking the bullets and was still out on the main floor, exposed. She rolled over onto her back, whipping out her pistol and firing wildly. It shook in her hands.
“Tansy—” Mallow started to crawl towards her, but Aster grabbed her shoulder.
“No, don’t expose yourself. We’ll cover her from here.”
Aster peered over the bar. There were eight raveners on the floor now, two of them cornering Tansy, unable to return her fire under the barrage but nimbly avoiding her every shot as they moved in. Aster leveled her gun and fired at the nearest one. Missed.
“Dammit. They’re too ripping fast,” Aster cursed as she ducked back down.
“Not for me,” Mallow said darkly. She surfaced and fired off a shot in one smooth motion, and Aster heard the heavy thump of one of the raveners falling to the floor in convulsions. But now Tansy’s own pistol was clicking emptily. She was out of voltage. The second ravener sneered and drew his revolver. Aster rose from her crouch—
—and took the ravener down with a shot to the stomach, the man doubling over and seizing as he hit the ground. Tansy scrambled behind the bar to join the rest of them before the other raveners could close in on her. But bullets still flew above them, threatening to hit anyone who surfaced to take a shot of their own.
“Thank you,” Tansy said shakily, her eyes glassy as Mallow embraced her.
“As if we were going to leave you out there as bait,” Clementine scoffed.
Mallow checked the charge on her weapon. “By my count that’s four raveners down, eight to go,” she said.
“Seven,” Zee said, ducking back into cover, his voltric pistol humming. “But there’s only five left down here. Where the hell are the other two?”
“Probably guarding Derrick’s private room upstairs,” Aster said grimly. They wouldn’t abandon him, least of all during a fight. “We have to get him before the law surrounds this place, or we’ll never escape. And the vault—we have to steal the theomite out of the vault for the Scorpions, too.” She swallowed the slick fear in her throat. “We’re gonna have to split up.”
Clementine’s eyes widened. “Aster, no—”
A bullet hit the cash register, cutting her off with the sound of coppers raining down on them.
“We don’t have time to argue,” Aster said through gritted teeth. “Tansy, I want you and Clem to get the theomite—and leave our list of demands behind in the safe, where they won’t be damaged when we burn this place down. That’s crucial, hear? Raven, you’re going to come with me to get Derrick and Violet. And Zee, you’re going to stay back here with Mallow and cover us—”
Sudden dread washed over Aster then, filling her belly with ice. Lethargy leached into her limbs. A sob escaped her lips as she struggled to keep from collapsing.
No …
The raveners must have gotten close enough to exert their power, poisoning her mind. She’d had more than her fair share of practice resisting their assaults from her time at the welcome house, but she’d never been forced to deal with this many at once before. Self-loathing, exhaustion, despair, and regret tore at her from the inside. Her vision blurred and doubled. Her breathing grew ragged and uneven. She felt as if her brain were being pushed through a meat grinder.
“We—we just need to—” Aster stammered.
She should never have brought them here.
They had been free, all of them. And she had dragged them back into danger for her own selfish need to be the hero. Her ambition would get everyone killed. Even now they all had the same glazed-eyed, slack-jawed look that Aster was surely wearing herself, waiting for the raveners to swarm them—
“Aster—Aster! Look at me,” Raven said urgently, snapping her fingers in front of Aster’s face. “Come on, they’re almost on us.”
Raven was the only one who didn’t seem affected. She alone was keeping the raveners at bay, loosing shot after shot over the bar—though judging from the tense look on her face, she didn’t have many left.
“How … how are you resisting them…” Aster said weakly.
“It’s gonna take more than these bastards to knock me out of step,” she muttered in reply. She flipped the switch on her pistol to the more powerful setting with shaking fingers.
“Don’t, it’ll use up the rest of your voltage,” Zee warned, his face twisted up in pain.
“Then I’ll just have to make it count,” Raven said, her jaw set. She rose up over the bar, clutching the gun with both hands, and let loose a flash of lightning so bright it left Aster momentarily blinded. A crack of thunder followed an instant later, along with the sudden explosive sound of splitting wood.
The raveners released their hold.
Aster clutched her head as her mind suddenly cleared. She climbed to her feet and peered over the lip of the bar.
Fire—engulfing the table Raven had blasted, swelling with smoke, sending the raveners scattering back.
“You said we had to burn the place down anyway,” Raven said with a shrug.
For the first time since the night had begun, Aster felt a grin tug at her face. “Quick thinking, Ray.” She looked at the others, who were also coming to their senses. It wouldn’t be long before the raveners reasserted themselves. “All right, look sharp. There’s no more time to discuss this. We’re splitting up. Meet back at the wagon before this place comes down around us, hear?”
They nodded, Zee and Mallow taking up their positions while Clementine and Tansy bolted in one direction and Aster and Raven bolted in the other. Aster darted from table to table for cover as she led Raven towards the grand staircase, staying low to
avoid both the thickening smoke and the raveners’ bullets. Zee and Mallow’s steady covering fire filled the room with crackling thunder and a lingering voltric charge that raised the hair on the nape of Aster’s neck.
“So when the hell were you going to let me know you aren’t affected by raveners?” Aster hissed as they reached the foot of the stairs.
Raven laughed harshly, and it turned into a cough as the smoke threatened to choke them. “If we survive this shit, I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
They went up the stairs back-to-back, Aster returning fire to a ravener leaping over a billiards table in pursuit of them, while Raven faced forward to confront the two raveners who would no doubt be guarding the second floor. Her gun was dead, but they had no way of knowing that.
“Hell yes,” Aster whispered to herself as she finally landed a hit on the ravener. The lightning hit him square in the shoulder, sending him almost head over heels. She tried to count how many raveners were left, but she couldn’t see through the smoke. There was no sign of her sister and Tansy, either. Her brief flash of triumph went dark. Did that mean they’d made it to the vault? Or had they been—
“Duck!” Raven said suddenly, grabbing Aster from behind and throwing her to the ground. Aster let out a grunt, hitting the landing of the second floor just as the blast of a shotgun roared overhead. Her gun tumbled out of her hands. Skittered across the floor. She crawled towards it.
“That’s far enough, you little snake,” a low voice growled, and the pointed toe of a boot came down on the back of her wrist. Aster winced, looking up at the ravener crushing her hand. His shotgun was aimed squarely at her face. Behind him, the other ravener had tackled Raven to the ground. She clawed at his face as he seemed to struggle to subdue her with his mind, his expression dark with concentration.
“End of the line, dustblood,” Aster’s ravener said, his salt-and-pepper-stubbled face splitting with a grin. His orange eyes flashed as he jabbed the muzzle of his gun between her eyes. “Now on your feet, nice and slow.”
Aster swallowed. Desperately searched for any way out of this. She looked down the marbled hallway. To the gilded door opening at the end of it. And stepping out from behind that door—
Violet?
They locked gazes, the startled blue of Violet’s widening eyes sending a jolt through Aster’s chest. Her black hair was piled high in ringlets on her head, her midnight blue dress sweeping around her ankles. Derrick stood behind her in a three-piece suit, his hair slicked back, his freckled face even paler than usual. Time seemed to move at half speed then: Violet’s gaze darting from Aster to her gun on the floor, Violet gathering her skirts and running for the abandoned weapon, Violet picking it up in her ringed fingers and firing on Aster’s ravener just as he turned to face her. Thunder filled the hallway. The ravener’s body seized with voltricity as he crumpled to the ground, Aster rolling out of the way to avoid him. The second ravener let out a roar as he abandoned Raven and swung around to attack Violet, reaching for his sidearm. Violet flinched back, firing again but missing. Raven regained her feet with shocking speed, grabbing the ravener from behind and reaching her arm around his throat to strangle him. His white face grew fiery with shock and anger.
“Quick, Vi! I can’t hold him—” Raven urged.
The ravener broke free.
Violet seemed to steady herself and shot him again, and this time the lightning hit him square in the chest. The hallway fell silent but for the sound of their uneven breathing and the crackling of the spreading fire below. Aster climbed to her feet, shaking as if she’d been the one hit with voltricity herself.
“I thought you were coming to save me,” Violet said at last, tossing the gun back to Aster, who barely caught it.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Aster said with a loose laugh, and, despite the peril of the moment—or perhaps because of it—they embraced.
“Where’s the little orange rat boy?” Raven demanded as they separated. She was hurriedly collecting the raveners’ weapons now that her own was spent.
“Present,” Derrick said weakly, emerging from the shadows to join them, looking ill as he considered the raveners at their feet. “And begging your pardon, but I think we’re going to need to find another way out of here.”
He gestured to the stairway, which was swiftly succumbing to the flames that had spread throughout the first floor. The smoke was growing so thick they could barely see each other, and the ceiling blackened as it burned, the wood cracking and popping ominously. Aster sweated beneath her layers, fear sending a spear of frost through the heat in her chest. There was no sign of any of the others downstairs. What if they were passed out, or trapped, or too turned around to find the exit? Instinct urged her to dive into the inferno and find them, drag them out into the open air herself if she had to. She could not risk leaving them behind—
“I said—” Derrick tried again, his voice strained.
“I heard you,” Aster barked, turning her back. There was no choice but to see this through, or none of them would survive.
“There’s a row of bushes beneath the windows in the room we just came from,” Violet offered. “It’s not the softest landing, but—”
Aster nodded gratefully. “It’ll do. We’ll jump. Follow me.”
She didn’t wait for any of them to argue, sprinting down the hallway, coughing through her dustkerchief. The heat peeled at her exposed skin and made her eyes run. By the time she made it to Derrick’s private room, she had fallen to her hands and knees to avoid the worst of the smoke. The others crawled behind her. The large bay windows had already been opened to let in the breeze, the dark promise of the cool night air beckoning Aster closer. She peered over the sill, cursing quietly.
The law had surrounded the building.
There were at least a dozen men back here, and no doubt more out front. It wasn’t unexpected, but it did complicate things. She turned back to the others, who crowded next to her.
“They’re gonna be on us as soon as we hit the ground,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “Remember, this is a hostage situation—that’s the only way we get through all of them and back to the wagon, where, the dead willing, the others are waiting for us. Raven, I’ll take the man of the hour here, and you take Violet, hear? We have to make it look convincing. Everyone just follow my lead.”
Derrick locked eyes with Aster. “You mean—ah—you and me—?”
“You and me.” Aster grabbed his hand before he could lose his nerve, and they stood, climbed through the window, and jumped. Aster’s stomach rose to her throat as she fell to the earth, the cool air around her sucking the clinging heat away. Derrick squeezed her hand so hard it hurt, releasing at the last instant so they could land properly. Branches scratched at them as they crashed through the bushes, a shudder running through Aster’s bones when her feet hit the ground. She curled into a ball and rolled clear of the shrubbery. The lawmen shouted at the sudden sight of her, a chorus of clicks rising up as they released the safeties on their weapons.
“THEY’RE OVER HERE—”
“I HAVE EYES ON THEM—”
“ENOUGH!” Aster shouted back at them, jumping to her feet and yanking Derrick along with her. She pressed the muzzle of her voltric pistol to Derrick’s throat, holding Derrick so tight against her she could feel the beat of his heart. She heard the thud of Raven and Violet landing behind her, and they emerged from the darkness to stand next to her.
“We have Derrick McClennon here, and his Lucker, too. Drop your weapons or we kill them both,” Aster ordered.
“Please!” Violet wailed for good measure, throwing a crack into her voice.
The lawmen hesitated, neither dropping their weapons nor coming any closer.
“Unless you bastards want the death of McClennon’s boy on your heads, you’ll let us be on our way,” Raven added, her voice hoarse from coughing.
“Do as they say! My uncle will sort this out,” Derrick commanded then, and even with soot smea
red across his face, leaves tangled in his hair, and the muzzle of a gun kissing the underside of his chin, the authority in his tone was undeniable.
“Orders?” one of the lawmen demanded.
“Let them through,” another said, holding his hand up, and the remaining lawmen lowered their weapons. Aster pushed Derrick forward roughly.
“Easy,” Derrick whispered. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were enjoying this.”
“Just trying to sell it,” Aster whispered grimly. She still couldn’t celebrate yet, not until she knew the others had made it out of that building alive.
She and Raven led Derrick and Violet around to the front of the building, the lawmen following them, their gazes hot with hate on Aster’s back. One misstep, she knew, and they would bury a bullet in her skull.
Their getaway wagon was still waiting in the street, though more lawmen surrounded it, in a shootout with—
There they are.
Relief flooded Aster’s blood. Tansy, Mallow, Clementine, and Zee had all escaped the burning building and managed to take shelter in the wagon, where their spare weapons had been waiting for them. They fired bolts of voltricity in all directions, ducking the bullets that flew back in return.
“You tell your men to back down,” Aster growled to the lawman nearest to her. “Now,” she added when he hesitated.
He ran forward and gave the order, waving his hands frantically as he warned the other lawmen of the situation. Her friends cheered at the sight of her.
“That’s right, back the hell up!” Aster yelled out to the law. “We’re almost done here! Nobody else need get hurt!”
“Do as they say,” Derrick repeated calmly.
The law stood down. They lowered their weapons. And at last, at last, Aster reached the wagon. She shoved Derrick in the back, keeping her gun trained on him the whole time as she climbed in after him. Then Raven and Violet piled in. Zee hurried over the top and took up the reins. Snapped them once, set the horses galloping.
“Make sure we’re not followed,” Aster ordered Mallow, collapsing in exhaustion on the splintered wood.
The Sisters of Reckoning Page 18