Noam touched Bea’s forehead with the back of his hand, and Taye said, “She’s really hot, isn’t she? I think her fever’s getting worse.”
Her skin burned. Noam drew his hand away and sat down in one of the empty chairs.
His entire body felt heavy.
This was how his father died. In a red ward, leaking blood and magic from every orifice. He’d read that the symptoms of magic were what they were because it wasn’t like a regular virus at all. People’s bodies just weren’t meant to host magic. And if his mother hadn’t hanged herself, she would’ve died this way too.
Only maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, Rivka Mendel would have survived. And she’d never been as antigovernment as Brennan or his father—she might have stayed by Noam’s side the way no one else had.
“Is she okay?” Taye said abruptly.
Noam turned to look. Bea’s whole body had gone rigid, spine arced off the bed. Her eyes were open but rolled back, exposing glazed whites. “Shit,” Noam whispered, just as Bea’s body relaxed, then seized again, rhythmic contractions that rocked the cot back against the canvas and threatened to spill her thin body onto the floor.
“Wait—” Taye started, but Noam was already on his feet, dragging the IV stand out of the way so Bea wouldn’t hit it as she flailed.
“Bethany!” Noam shouted, casting his gaze out, hoping it would land on Bethany but unable to spare more than a second looking. On the bed, Bea shook violently, her jaw clenched and hands clawlike.
“Should I hold her down?” Taye asked.
“No. I mean, I don’t know, maybe . . . no, no, actually, that won’t help. Um. Make sure she doesn’t hurt herself on anything?”
And then Bethany was there, kneeling on the floor next to Bea’s bed, face bloodless. Her hands didn’t shake, though, as she pushed a syringe of clear fluid into Bea’s IV line.
“I sent someone for Halsing. It’ll be a while. She’s outside the air lock,” Bethany said. Her free hand twisted around a fistful of bedsheets. “But. I don’t think . . . It doesn’t look good.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Taye yelped. “She’ll be fine. We just need to wait for the doctor.”
Bethany didn’t look convinced, but she shut her mouth.
They hovered there, useless, as Bea shook and choked for air. She sounded awful, like her throat was convulsing the same way as the rest of her body, horrible fleshy noises, her mouth gaping open and lips rolling inward. Bethany turned Bea on her side at one point, in case she vomited, but nothing came out except spit.
Bea was still seizing when Halsing arrived, Noam crouched down at her bedside and holding on to her sweaty little palm. He could barely bring himself to look at her.
“How long has she been like this?” Halsing said.
Bethany shook her head. “Too long. Fifteen minutes, at least.”
Halsing’s mouth was a straight line.
“Is she going to be all right?” Taye asked. His tone seemed forcibly even, like he was trying hard to seem unaffected.
“I doubt it,” Halsing said. No sugarcoating.
“Can’t you do something?” Noam retorted. “Where the hell have you been, anyway? A child is dying, and you’re off doing what? Help her! ”
Halsing brushed her gloved fingertips against Bea’s temple, wiping away a bead of perspiration. “I wish I could, but it’s regulation. I have to spend my resources on those who might survive.”
Painfully, perfectly logical. After all, this place couldn’t support mechanical ventilation. Noam knew that. Bethany knew it too; Noam saw it in the lines between her brows and the set of her shoulders as she leaned in over the bed, like she thought proximity might keep Bea alive.
“Her IV bag is empty,” Noam said. His voice sounded like it came from far away, hard and angry. “I’ll get her a new one. We can at least spare fluids, right?”
Halsing hesitated, but then she nodded. When Noam returned from the supply closet, she and Taye had both moved on to other patients, leaving Noam and Bethany to watch Bea.
Bea’s body was so still. So . . .
“It’s okay,” he told her.
Bea made a strident noise in the back of her throat, wrists jerking awkwardly. Noam fumbled with her hand for a second, staring down at Bea’s pale face and wishing . . . he wished he knew healing magic, even though it wouldn’t work on something like this. Even if he knew how, the magic he would use to heal her was the same magic that was killing her. The thing that made Noam a witching would ensure Bea never was.
He brushed damp hair from her forehead, sweeping it behind her hot ear. “It’s okay to let go,” he whispered. He chose to believe she understood.
A nurse took over eventually and sent Noam to hang fluids and bathe sweaty brows. He kept checking on Bea every chance he could, even when nothing changed, until at last, late in the afternoon, when the setting sun cast red light into the tents, he looked over, and her bed was empty.
Dara found him that night out by the boardwalk. The wind had picked up sometime in the dusk hours, and it whipped sea-smell off the ocean, briny and fishy, tangling Noam’s hair and blowing sand up the back of his shirt. Off duty, Dara had changed out of his greens into something gray and fitted, the whites of his eyes flashing in the lights from the pier.
“I thought I’d find you out here,” Dara said when he reached Noam’s side. He was close enough their shoulders almost touched.
“I’ve never seen the ocean before.”
Noam gazed out at the black water, the moonlight glancing off the crests of waves as they crashed into shore. And past that, where the sea blurred into starless sky.
Dara kicked at a few broken shells in the sand, scattering them toward the dune grasses. Silence unspooled between them, Dara’s tension drawn in his posture and the wordless line of his lips. Noam felt it too; he’d been feeling it ever since Bea died.
“This is Lehrer’s fault,” Dara said.
Noam looked at him, heart stumbling over a beat, but Dara was focused on the horizon, as if he’d temporarily forgotten Noam was there.
“And how do you figure that?”
As Dara turned away from the sea, his hair blew across his face, dark and wild. “If Lehrer cared about stopping the virus, don’t you think he’d send real doctors? Don’t you think he’d spend tax money on vaccine research and supportive care, not . . . not these pointless wars in Atlantia, fighting for territory that was never ours to begin with?”
“Don’t get me wrong—I think the Atlantian occupation is fucked up, and of course I support vaccine research,” Noam said. “But Sacha’s the one running this country, not Lehrer.”
Even saying Sacha’s name made him feel like he’d been poisoned.
Dara’s face twisted in disdain. “Sacha doesn’t have any actual power. He does exactly what Lehrer wants him to do.”
Noam knew that wasn’t true, having read Sacha’s emails and witnessed him disregard Lehrer’s wishes to commit horrible crimes. But Dara didn’t want to hear that. Dara didn’t want to hear anything that wasn’t what he already believed.
“Why do you hate Lehrer so much?” Noam said, exhaling heavily even as he glanced back toward the barracks; if they were having this conversation, he didn’t want to be interrupted. Dara made a face, and Noam rolled his eyes. “I mean it. You can barely look at him. Do you really think there’s some conspiracy? Or do you just hate him for personal reasons?”
Dara snorted and dropped down onto the sand, his legs stretched out toward the sea, heels digging into the bank of shells rolled in by the last tide. After a moment Noam joined him. The sand was cold beneath his elbows and uncomfortably damp.
“There are a lot of reasons,” Dara said. He’d lowered his voice even though no one was nearby; maybe he thought the wind would carry it back to the barracks. “You’re right, many of them personal. I’ve been his ward a long time. I know him. And as soon as I would feel close to him, he’d pull away. Every time I thought he could be like a father, he p
roved he wasn’t. I don’t know what you’ve been imagining about our relationship—I suppose you think we had Shabbos dinner every Friday night, and he helped me with my biology homework and told me about his childhood. Well. You have no idea what our relationship was like. And, of course, it makes no difference to you.”
Noam opened his mouth to argue, but Dara shook his head, cutting him off.
“I know it doesn’t. You wouldn’t understand. But I doubt Lehrer’s capable of loving anyone—and especially not me.”
Noam chewed his lip, quiet. I’m not sure my father loved me either, toward the end. The words scratched at the inside of Noam’s chest. He didn’t dare say them out loud.
Dara might know Lehrer, but he didn’t understand him. He’d never experienced the kind of loss that Lehrer had.
He’d never experienced much loss at all, as far as Noam could tell.
“For the rest of it, I know you’ll think this is me being evasive, but I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.” Dara held Noam’s gaze. “For one, you wouldn’t believe me—don’t give me that look; I know you wouldn’t. But even if you would, I still couldn’t tell you. For your own safety.”
“This isn’t Stalinist Russia, Dara. You’re not going to get arrested for criticizing the defense minister.”
“Who said anything about arrested? But suffice to say, things are going to change in this country, Noam. Sooner than you think. You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask one of the soldiers. They’ll tell you just how often they have to fend off riots. These won’t stay skirmishes for long, and Lehrer knows it.”
“No shit,” Noam burst out. “Because Sacha is rounding everyone up and throwing them into refugee camps, where they’re pretty much damned to die just like we saw today. How can you be so fucking blind? How can you stand there and talk about how bad Lehrer is when Sacha’s doing this?”
“What else is he supposed to do? Really, Noam, I’d love to know. We don’t have resources to support the entire population of Atlantia—”
“The entire—Jesus. You are so fucking privileged, Dara, it makes me fucking sick.”
“Privileged?” Dara barked out a laugh, something raw and strangled. He hunched over, pressing a hand to his chest, and from the manic grimace on his face it was impossible to tell if he was amused or in pain. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I grew up starving,” Noam hissed. “I grew up hiding my father from the people who would take him away. I watched my mother kill herself and my father hide from the real world. I went to prison because I did what was necessary to protect my family. You grew up . . . you had Lehrer. You had everything.”
Dara’s eyes were bright obsidian stones in his face, gaze sharp enough to cut. “No. What I had was—” He cut off abruptly, like he’d thought better of what he’d been about to say. Dara exhaled, a brittle smile twisting his mouth. After a moment, he said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what I can tell you, or how much I even want to. You’ve put me in an interesting position, Noam Álvaro. In that way, I suppose Lehrer’s already won.”
Noam had no idea what Dara was talking about.
Dara lifted his face up toward the darkened sky, exposing the long line of his throat. Noam wanted to reach for him. He dug his fingers into the sand so he couldn’t.
“What do you mean, he’s won?” Noam asked. “Won what? Dara . . .”
But Dara’s expression had fallen back into the same placid mask of normalcy Noam had come to expect.
But it was a mask. How had Noam never noticed before?
Another wave crashed onto the sand, this one creeping up far enough that the foam slipped over the toes of Noam’s boots. He bent his knees to draw his feet out of range.
It was one thing for Dara to hate Lehrer, or even work against him. But if Dara was with Sacha, then Noam would never forgive him.
“You’re right,” he said. “I trust Lehrer. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong or that I don’t believe you, but I don’t have to agree just because we’re friends.”
“Oh, we’re friends now? I hadn’t realized.”
“Fuck off, Dara,” Noam said, but Dara just smiled and tossed a broken piece of shell toward the ocean.
The salty sea wind was what burned his cheeks, Noam told himself. It had nothing to do with the unsteady patter of his heart.
After a moment, Dara leaned back again. That smile was gone, replaced by the same old unreadable expression.
The void from earlier was back, yawning wide in Noam’s chest. Dara felt it, too, he thought. Dara might not have lost his family, but he had that same hole inside him. They matched.
There was so much more to Dara than the cold, bitter façade he’d presented. He was that, too, but he was also Dara: the effortless genius, the political critic and poker cheat, the boy who analyzed everything he read according to poststructuralist theory and kept fresh flowers in a vase on his bedside table. Dara, who claimed he hated everything but secretly dreamed of counting the stars.
Noam needed a moment to get up the nerve.
“Dara . . .” Noam started, but he didn’t know how to finish. He reached over instead and touched Dara’s arm.
Dara flinched away so violently that it felt like being struck himself, Dara’s entire body recoiling as if Noam had branded him with a hot coal. His eyes snapped to meet Noam’s, wide and overly bright as he shoved himself up again.
“I’m sorry,” Noam said quickly, holding his hands up. Surrender.
“No . . . you’re all right. I’m sorry.” Dara looked away, gaze skittering out toward the ocean, the barracks, then finally settling somewhere in the vicinity of Noam’s shoulder. “It’s . . . been a long day. We should go inside.”
Noam’s gut shriveled. Still, he nodded and followed a half step behind Dara back up to the barracks.
Dara seemed normal the next day, smiling at jokes and doing his work with the swift single-mindedness that he was known for. And maybe Dara was right—they weren’t friends. Better if Noam remembered that from now on, instead of . . . instead of whatever he’d been thinking lately. But sometimes Noam caught Dara looking at him from across the room with a thoughtful expression, and Noam wondered if he really understood Dara at all.
Scanned analog file stored on encrypted MoD server.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
To: Counterterrorism From: Chicago
Re: 10-29 Witching Militant Attack
Precedence: IMMEDIATE
Date: 11-01-2016
Title: RESULTS OF INITIAL INVESTIGATION INTO 10-29 ATTACK
Synopsis: To provide results of the initial investigation into the witching militia “Avenging Angels” attack in Chicago.
Details: On 10/29/2016 a bomb threat was received, stating the Avenging Angels intended to detonate a fuse bomb in the vicinity of Hyde Park. Initial reports suggested this threat was both credible and imminent. Evacuation commenced immediately, redirecting civilians to a presumed safe location.
On 10/29/2016 at 11:42 AM, 18 fuse bombs detonated in the Chicago metro area, particularly Millennium Park, where many evacuees were being detained. Subsequent attacks targeted first responders and paramedics. At the time this memorandum was drafted, there were 339 confirmed deaths and 192 missing.
The Avenging Angels released a video broadcast on all major news networks claiming responsibility for the attack.
Intelligence confirms the Avenging Angels still operate under the leadership of Adalwolf Lehrer, a.k.a. Uriel [see Appendix A], former army private first class, witching with presenting power pyromancy (ability level 3). Additional reports suggest A. Lehrer has suffered from unexplained illness for some months. Intelligence officers now believe the primary strategic force among the Avenging Angels is A. Lehrer’s 18-year-old brother, Calix Lehrer, a.k.a. Azriel [see attached]. C. Lehrer is a former patient of St. George’s Hospital, a witching with numerous extramagical abilities. Officers, be adv
ised: C. Lehrer’s presenting power is—file damage, illegible—(ability level 4). Take appropriate precautions [see Appendix B for recommendations].
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He dreamed Bea stood in that ocean just off the boardwalk, salt water around her ankles and blood on her dress. Magic was her electric crown.
“I’m sorry,” Noam told her. “I tried. There wasn’t anything I could do. I’m sorry.”
Then he was in the ocean at her side, her wet fingers cold as they slid along his cheek and pulled him down.
The waves crashed against Noam’s legs.
Into his ear she whispered:
“Faraday.”
The dream cracked like an egg.
Noam lurched upright in his bed, sheets a damp tangle around his feet and pulse hot in his mouth. The clock on his bedside table read 2:03—another three hours till his alarm. Noam was certain if he closed his eyes again, that dream would pick up right where it left off, with the smell of gore and death on the sea breeze.
He slipped out of bed, grabbing a coat from the back of the door and toeing on shoes. The government complex was so quiet at this hour it felt like a moment trapped in amber, as if the real world might still spin on outside these walls, but here—here would never change.
He still tasted magic, sour and sharp on his tongue as he headed downstairs. He needed fresh air, that was all. Just . . . somewhere to sit and breathe where he wasn’t suffocating.
The guards at the door to the courtyard recognized him well enough now not to say anything as he went past; they opened the door and let him step out into the chilly spring night.
He missed the days Lehrer talked about, when Carolinian spring was still warm. The thin coat wasn’t enough to keep the wind from burning into his bones. He tugged it closer round his shoulders, realizing only when he caught the scent of smoke and spilled bourbon that this wasn’t even his coat. It was Dara’s.
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