Backpacking Through Bedlam, page 35
Sally’s desire for pizza hadn’t been born of a small appetite: she had put away her first slice even before I could finish handing out napkins, and was well into her fourth. I eyed her warily across the table.
“If you make yourself sick, you can’t come with us to fight the Covenant field team,” I cautioned.
“Why would anybody fight, ever, when they live in a world where there’s pizza?” she asked, mouth full of pepperoni, cheese, and half-chewed dough.
“Fundamental disagreements about the nature of the world, generally,” said Thomas. “The Covenant believes that if they ever share the pizza, it will run out, and no one will get to have it anymore.”
Sally rolled her eyes and grabbed another garlic knot.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked, turning to me. “I’m not going to hover, but you were drugged and abducted, and then used one of your tattoos. I’m allowed to worry.”
“It was a minor one,” I assured him. To my own surprise, his concern was comforting rather than cloying. Maybe I was getting used to being someone people were concerned about.
“Is it always going to be like this?” asked Sally.
“Not usually,” I said. “This has been an exciting day, even by my standards.”
“Good.” She took another slice of pizza. “When we get home, I’m going to sleep for a week. I’ll wake up to eat, shower, and put on clean socks, and then it’s back to bed.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, and it did. It really did.
I had a slice of pizza in my hand and we all had the rest of our lives ahead of us, and maybe this was going to work out after all. This was a world I could live with.
Twenty-one
“I don’t care what you have to do, I don’t care how you do it, but baby, promise that you’ll always come back home to me.”
—Alexander Healy
Midtown Manhattan, preparing to take on a Covenant field team
GETTING UPTOWN FROM THE slaughterhouse was rendered somewhat easier by the fact that we now knew where we were actually going, rather than taking wild stabs in the dark and hoping we would hit something: according to Sarah, the Covenant field team was holed up in a residential building a few blocks from Times Square. That put them way too close to a lot of tourists for my comfort. It also meant they’d have trouble keeping track of everyone coming and going, since literally thousands of people would be doing it throughout the night. Sarah hadn’t found any indications in the first team’s minds that the others were paying any special attention to the Meatpacking District, so we didn’t have to worry the Nest was under surveillance and that we might be seen leaving. After extensive discussion, we decided that if we headed uptown by three, even with fewer trains running, the subway would be safe enough to ride, and get us to Times Square in plenty of time for the planned pre-dawn strike. Once we got there and surrounded the building the Covenant occupied, we’d wait for Mary to pop over and give us the signal to move.
Kitty’s team was taking the sewers—something that came naturally to the bogeymen, and that their allies had long since learned to deal with—while Cara and her van would be accompanying Verity’s team into New Jersey. So it was after a short but much-needed nap and with our stomachs still full of pizza that Thomas, Sally, and I found ourselves on the subway heading uptown, bathed in stark industrial light and surrounded by the city that really did never sleep.
It was all so mundane and believable that it made me want to laugh. I would have, if not for the fact that Thomas was visibly struggling not to gawk at everything, while Sally looked once again like she was on the verge of a panic attack. I reached over and squeezed her knee with my free hand, earning myself an annoyed look, which I answered with a smile. She was growing on me. It wasn’t her fault that Thomas didn’t feel the need to protect her: despite our long history together, he’d had a lot more opportunity to see Sally at work in the field.
That was a sobering thought. But a good one, because it meant we had a lot of firsts still ahead of us, even after everything. A woman with electric green hair and tattooed roses twining up and down her arms got onto the train, giving Thomas’s tattoos a frank look. He didn’t seem to notice, leaning back in his seat and holding on to my hand for dear life.
“Nice ink,” said the woman, after several minutes of noisy silence. “Who’s your artist?”
“I do my own work, miss,” said Thomas, as the train pulled into the station we’d been told to disembark at. We stood as a group, Thomas still holding my hand, Sally practically pressing herself against his other side. No one looked at us twice. In a population as diverse and chaotic as the New York subway, a blonde woman who cut her hair with a knife, a heavily tattooed man, and a younger Korean woman were basically normal.
“Okay,” I said, once we were safely off the train. “This is where we split up, get up to street level, and circle the building. Everyone remember the directions Sarah gave us?”
“Not sure I could forget them after she yelled them inside my head,” said Sally sourly.
“Telepathy is useful like that,” I agreed.
Thomas squeezed my hand, then let me go.
It took everything I had not to grab for his hand. Even though I knew this was the plan, it ached a little to watch him step away from me. He’d separate from Sally a little farther on, while I took the nearest exit to the street. I watched them go, then stepped backward, heading for the exit I was supposed to take. Two flights of concrete steps took me to the street, passing through several fascinating bands of odor before I emerged. It was quieter than it had been earlier, but the occasional horn or shout echoed off the buildings, and everything smelled like a mixture of garbage, urine, hot dogs, and roasting peanuts that turned my stomach even as it made my mouth water.
New York City. There’s no place on Earth quite like it.
No time to stand around getting my bearings or gaping like a tourist. I turned a single circle, checking the street signs, then started briskly forward, walking with speed and intent to match any local. Part of it was bravado, a concerted effort to avoid attracting notice. Part of it was Sarah’s directions, which were just barely shy of an outright compulsion. I knew exactly where I needed to go, because she’d made sure of it: the route was clear and vivid in my mind, and following it was as natural as breathing.
It had been a little unnerving, the ease and power with which she’d slid that information into my thoughts. More unnerving, in its own special way, than watching her rip into the minds of the Covenant. I’d never seen her violating someone like that before: for all that I knew, what she’d done was entirely within the realm of what any cuckoo could do, if properly provoked by someone who hadn’t inherited the slight veil of protection I’d received from my mother. But planting the directions in my brain . . .
Sarah had been in and out of my thoughts since she was a kid, shaky and anxious and unsure of her welcome. It had never been this easy before. We were attuned to each other, but this was the first time she’d been able to slide in like it was nothing, like the wind whistling through a keyhole. Whatever had changed with her, it was major, and it was starting to frighten me a little.
If it scared me, when I already loved her, how was it affecting Thomas?
I stopped, as abruptly as if I had a rope tied around my waist which had just snapped taut, and my thoughts stopped with the rest of me. I was here.
The building in front of me was perfectly normal for its surroundings, and I would never have given it a second look if I hadn’t already known I needed to come here. I stepped back, giving it a more analytical look.
Based on the exterior, I was looking at six stories, with an inner and outer door at the entrance, at least two dozen windows, and two fire escapes, just on this side of the building. No telling how many there were in total, or whether there was a back entrance, or backyard or roof access to the buildings on either side. Hopefully, Thomas and Sally would be able to find out. Otherwise, if our targets got away from us in there, this could quickly turn into a ridiculous, impossible chase through Midtown.
I leaned against a wall, murmuring, “Mary, I’m in position.”
It wasn’t a surprise when my former babysitter walked around the corner and settled against the wall next to me. “So are the others,” said Mary. “You’re good to go.”
I flashed her a furtive thumbs-up, aware that anyone who saw our exchange would probably assume drug deal, then pushed away from the wall. “Let everyone know,” I said.
“On it.”
Squaring my shoulders, I started across the street, scanning for signs of anyone paying attention to my approach. I didn’t see any. As I approached the building door, I slid my hand into my pocket for my lockpicks. I didn’t need them. Even as I was reaching for them, a young man stepped out, saw me coming, and paused to hold the door open for me. Being a nonthreatening young blonde comes with advantages as well as drawbacks sometimes. This was unremarkable; he wouldn’t even remember it tomorrow, and I smiled at him as I stepped inside.
The hall was tiled in white linoleum, and the air smelled of boiled cabbage and floor cleaner. According to Sarah’s directions, I needed to be on the third floor. The elevator would have been faster but more dangerous; elevators can jam, elevators can be stopped mid-trip, and most importantly, people can hear them coming. I followed the hall until I found the stairs, and slipped inside, climbing silently upward.
I was almost there when I heard footsteps above me and looked up to see Sally coming down the stairs in my direction. She stopped when she saw me, blinking in surprise. I motioned for her to stay silent, and she nodded, even though she didn’t look particularly happy about it. Sure, I’d beaten her here, but barely, and we were both in. Call that a win.
I opened the fire door to the third-floor hallway, slipping through with one hand resting on the revolver at my hip, covered by my shirt but still easily accessible. Thomas caught the door before it could swing shut again, offering me a thin smile. It was my turn to blink.
I’d come in the front door. Sally had been coming down from a higher floor, having presumably used a rear fire escape to get there. There was only one stairway that I knew of. So how . . . ?
There would be time to worry about that later. According to Sarah, the door we wanted was only two down the hall. I pressed my back to the wall and started toward it, slow and easy, Thomas and Sally behind me. We’d agreed before leaving the slaughterhouse that I was the best suited for testing doors; if something happened to explode, my chances of missing the blast were better than anyone else’s. Or at least, that was what I was trying very firmly to tell myself.
When I reached the door, I stopped, listening intently. If there was anyone inside, I couldn’t hear them. I gestured for Sally and Thomas to stay back, then rapped my knuckles against the door, stepping back out of view almost before I was done.
Seconds ticked by, slow and heavy and almost alarmingly tense. I was on the verge of suggesting something more aggressive—nothing says “Hi, I’m here to kill you” like knocking a door off its hinges and chucking a grenade inside—when I heard the locks being undone and the door eased open a few inches. I couldn’t see the person on the other side. I could tell from the caution with which the door had opened that they were at the very least trying to be careful; they had decent reason to suspect that trouble might be coming their way.
They didn’t step into the hall or even stick their head past the threshold. That was probably good, from a personal safety standpoint; without cameras, it wasn’t great from a security standpoint. A voice behind them asked a pointed question in Italian. The person at the door answered in German. The door began to close again.
That was the moment to move. I pivoted my weight on my left foot, smoothly putting myself in front of the not-yet-closed door, and raised my right foot to kick it open. The whole thing swung open with a satisfying crash, bouncing off the wall inside, and I stepped through, guns already drawn, to find myself facing a surprised-looking blond man in the nondescript clothing of a door-to-door missionary.
“Hi,” I said blithely, as Thomas and Sally came in behind me. “I speak German.”
Not well, but well enough to have caught the gist of what he was saying: that whoever knocked had probably run when they realized the forces of virtue were behind the door, keeping this city safe. Covenant talk if I’d ever heard it.
There was a noise from the room at the end of the hall. “Thomas?” I said tightly.
“Yes, dear.” He stepped around the man, his empty hands by his sides, and started for the sound. The man tensed like he was going to reach for a weapon, and I made a soft tutting sound.
“Now, now, I wouldn’t,” I said. Sally eased the broken door closed behind us before sidestepping the man and going to join Thomas. “Are you all here?”
“Eyes on three,” called Thomas.
“We have no valuables,” said the man. He sounded unnervingly calm for someone who was being held at gunpoint by a strange woman who’d just broken into his apartment.
“Not here for your valuables,” I said. He raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry. “Here to kill you so you’ll stop harassing the local cryptids.”
“Ah,” he said. Now he sounded almost regretful, like he’d been hoping I’d have a different explanation for our presence. “Then may I assume you’re human beings? Traitors to your own kind, choosing to side with the monsters in the great war of good against evil?”
“Kid, if there’s good or evil here, the good side is the one that’s not kidnapping children,” I said, voice going flat. “Maybe this isn’t where you try to appeal to my sense of species loyalty.”
“Then why?”
“Because my family staked a claim to this continent and told you to stay out, and we don’t like people messing with our things.”
His face distorted in an instant, becoming a mask of disgust. “Healy,” he spat.
“Price, these days,” I said. “Has been for a while. But yeah, that’s where we started, and we told you not to come back here, and you did what? You came back here. So we’ve come to make you go away.”
I admit, I was halfway trying to bait him into attacking me. I’ve killed a lot of people, of a lot of different species, over the years. I’ve never been in the habit of cavalierly slaughtering humans. It shouldn’t have felt any different. A person’s a person, regardless of where they come from. But it did feel different, like killing humans who weren’t fighting back would somehow make me the kind of traitor to my own species the Covenant wanted to paint me as.
Brains are weird.
“Ah,” he said again. “So there’s no negotiation, then?”
“Not so much.”
“Noted.” And with that he grabbed the edge of the half-filled folding bookshelf behind him—a shelf I had quickly scanned for weapons before dismissing—and pulled it off the wall, shoving it at me at the same time.
I could have fired, and I might even have hit him, but not getting hit by a piece of furniture seemed more immediately important. I dodged instead, losing my shot as he ran, still bent over, to the living room. I jumped over the fallen bookshelf and pursued, plunging into a scene of total chaos.
Sally and a woman with a mop of curly brown hair were backed into one corner next to a bunk bed, the woman swinging what looked like a hardwood club at Sally, while Sally parried with a pair of collapsible batons she’d taken from Verity’s stash. Their expressions were equally grim, and they fought in total silence, ignoring the rest of the room.
That was probably for the best. Thomas had produced a handful of knives from somewhere, and was throwing them at a red-haired man who danced and weaved to avoid being hit, unable to get a solid shot lined up with his crossbow without holding still long enough to take a knife to the throat. As long as Thomas didn’t run out of knives, they’d stay at a stalemate. The third person in the room was standing to one side, in front of the only visible interior door. It was the woman I’d heard speaking Italian before, short, lithe, and dark-haired, and apparently unarmed. Her eyes were even darker than her hair, full of shadows, and I realized with a start that she was the one who’d been supplying the anti-telepathy charms for the group; this was the witch they’d managed to talk into siding against her own kind.
Witches and sorcerers aren’t cryptids, but they might as well be, for the way the Covenant goes after them. For a witch to side with the Covenant isn’t as unusual as it should be: when the monsters that have been hunting you offer to stop if you’ll just work for them, the temptation to go along with it is understandable, if unforgivable.
I could hear the man who’d tried to flatten me with the bookshelf moving around behind the door the witch was blocking. She was smiling distantly at me. It wasn’t a warm expression. I aimed my revolver at her.
“I don’t think so,” she said, and began moving her hands through the air like she was weaving an invisible cat’s-cradle, lips moving in sudden silence.
Umbramancer, then, and emboldened by the strengthening of the pneuma. I recognized those hand gestures from something Laura used to do, when I’d really been getting on her nerves. Laura would never have tried to throw that sort of working into a combat situation, wouldn’t have trusted in her own ability to weave the air. Umbramancers aren’t sorcerers, and the elements don’t dance to their call. And for all that I knew that to be true, I could feel the noose of wind starting to settle around my throat, ready to choke off my breath.
I still had a few seconds, though, so rather than shooting her, I pulled out a knife of my own and flung it into her shoulder just as it started getting difficult for me to breathe.
