by S. A. Moss
“Oh. I’ve never thought of it like that, but it makes sense. You’re not… You’re not from Chicago, are you?”
I almost didn’t ask the last part, not wanting to risk offending her. But she just shook her head.
“No. From Yorkshire. I came over on a boat a hundred years ago. I hate rain.”
That explained the accent. And though I couldn’t understand why rain would bother someone who literally couldn’t feel a drop, she had the right to spend her afterlife wherever she wanted.
“Well, I’m glad you came here,” I said, and meant it. “Thank you for helping me.”
Her currently brown eyes warmed slightly at my words, then she returned to the business at hand. “Binding is difficult. You must connect to the aether in the air, and also to the energy of the person you’re binding. You tie the two together.”
“So binding is like gluing aether to someone?”
“Stitching them together. Reach out and feel for my energy.” She gestured to herself.
Tentatively, I extended my awareness toward her. I’d become familiar with tapping into the energy of the universe, but I hadn’t ever tried to feel another being’s energy before. I knew it was possible to forge that connection though, because I’d felt pain in my own body when Alex had been attacked by demons several weeks ago.
Finally, I grasped it. While the energy of the universe felt like a neutral power source, the energy coming off Reeva was much more distinctive. It felt chaotic, full of bursts of motion.
“Okay,” I breathed. “I think I’ve got it. I can feel it.”
“Now picture a blanket or rope of aether. Attach it to me.”
Trying not to let go of the sense of Reeva, I pictured a blanket of aether settling over her.
The ghost shivered, then waved her hands over her head. My blanket dispersed.
“You didn’t bind it to me. Throwing a blanket over someone will annoy them. Not stop them.”
Nuts. This is harder than I thought it would be.
I shook out my shoulders, trying to refocus my energy. How the hell was my dad holding thousands of Guardians trapped like this? I couldn’t even bind one person.
As another train roared by overhead, I reached out for Reeva’s energy again, picturing a blanket of aether settling over her. Then I tried to blend the two separate energies, binding them together.
Reeva waved her hands over her head again, and after a momentary resistance my blanket dissipated once more.
“No,” she said simply, once the train had passed.
I ground my teeth in frustration. “Damn it! What am I doing wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re just not doing it right.”
Closing my eyes, I restrained myself—barely—from grabbing her and shaking her. Arjun had been right that she knew her stuff, but she wasn’t the best teacher. At least not to the slow kid in class.
“Care to elaborate on that?” I asked with exaggerated patience.
“You know what you need to do. Weave the two energies together. You’re just not doing it.”
“Ah, right. Good point, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said serenely. Apparently sarcasm wasn’t big with ghosts.
Biting my lip, I reached out again. It was getting easier to latch onto Reeva’s energy now. This time, instead of picturing a fully formed blanket and then throwing it over her, I imagined creating the blanket around her, using pieces of her aether along with the energy of the universe.
Reeva’s arms twitched, but didn’t rise over her head. She shot me a look of pleased surprise. “That’s it! You’re doing it!”
Yes!
No sooner had I started to internally celebrate than Reeva wrenched her arms up, breaking the bond and scattering the blanket. My shoulders sagged.
“Damn it. I guess not.”
“No, you were. It weren’t a strong bind, so it was easy to break. But you did it.”
I stood a little taller. That was something, at least. I just needed to drill the crap out of this until I could reliably throw a strong bind. And now that I knew I wasn’t crushing Reeva with my binds, I could comfortably practice on Alex.
A thought occurred to me, and I tilted my head at Reeva. “So it’s possible to break a bind?”
She nodded. “A weak one, very possible. Strong ones are harder. Some nearly impossible.”
“How do you do it?” I pressed eagerly.
“You have to unweave it from yourself. The stronger the bind, the tighter the weave.”
I chewed on my lip, mulling that over. “Would it be possible to break a bind on another person, or people? Or can only the person being bound free themselves?”
Reeva looked intrigued. I imagined she didn’t get a chance to talk about this stuff much. Or to talk to anyone about anything, probably. I made a mental note to ask the Council about her. She should be training all Guardians—just because she couldn’t come to the Shroud didn’t mean she couldn’t still be a great asset to us. Even if not all Guardians were capable of this level of aether manipulation, some of them surely would be, and I had a feeling the Council hadn’t prioritized advanced training.
“Don’t know,” the ghost said slowly. “I suppose if—”
Her answer was cut off by a blare of music from Alex’s cell phone.
He pulled it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen before he put it to his ear. “Hey, Seth. What’s up, buddy?”
I was about to turn back to Reeva, figuring Seth just wanted to know when Alex was coming back to work or something, but the look on Alex’s face stopped me. He glanced around, probably scanning for me, then spoke into the phone again. “What? What are you talking about?”
Leaving Reeva behind, I walked quickly towards Alex, fading back in as I approached. He waved me over, putting the phone on speaker.
Seth’s voice was loud and panicked. “Are you under a rock? Have you not seen any of the footage of this thing?”
My gaze met Alex’s, and he shook his head. “No. I’ve been… out. What thing? Where?”
“Downtown, dude! It’s a freaking monster, and it’s tearing up downtown. If you’re out, get home now!”
15
My blood chilled.
Not good.
“Seth, do you know exactly where this thing is?” I spoke into the phone in Alex’s outstretched hand.
“Cam? Is that you? Thank God. I didn’t know your number, or I would’ve called to warn you too. You guys gotta get home! This thing is insane. Nobody knows what it is or where it came from.” Seth’s words all came out in a rush, and he sounded out of breath.
“Are you safe?” Alex asked, and my chest tightened.
“Yeah. I was headed down to the Loop to meet up with a couple friends, but when I heard about this, I got off the train at the next stop. I’m walking back to my place now. The trains are crazy right now. They stopped running a bunch of lines, and they’re holding other trains up between stops with people still in them. I’m lucky I got out.”
“Okay. Get home and stay there. If you hear about any other, uh, monsters, will you call and let me know?”
“Sure. Seriously, get home, dude. Don’t try to be a hero.” Seth’s normally goofy voice was as grave as I’d ever heard it.
“Of course I won’t.”
I shot Alex a glance as he spoke, and he shrugged guiltily. I could relate to lying to friends so they wouldn’t worry. I hadn’t told Sarah what I was, or exactly what had gone down at the nightclub a few weeks ago.
“Good. I gotta go. I just wanted to make sure you were both okay. This shit is nuts, man!” Seth was working himself back into a panic.
“It’ll be okay, Seth. Thanks for calling.”
Alex pressed the “end call” button and stared at the phone in his hands for a second, like he was expecting a demon to leap out of the small screen and attack us right here.
“Hey.” I reached out and covered the phone with my palm, giving Alex’s hand a light squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. I
t may not be Akaron. We don’t know.”
“It’s something, though.” His voice was strained.
“Yeah.” My stomach twisted. “It’s probably some high-level Fallen that’s crossed over. We need to get down there. The Council doesn’t have very many Guardians to send out right now.”
He nodded, sucking in a deep breath. “Right. Let’s go.”
I turned back to where I’d last seen Reeva, not even bothering to fade back out. “Reeva, we gotta run. Thanks for the lesson. I’ll come back and see you again sometime, okay?”
“ANYTIME, DEARIE! BRING YOUR HUMAN TOO!”
Her voice screeched from under the tracks. I rubbed my ears. For someone who couldn’t tolerate loudness in others, she didn’t seem to care much about her own volume control.
“I will.”
Then Alex and I dashed away, following the tracks south. When we hit Irving Park, I flagged down a cab. This far north of downtown, it was hard to tell anything was amiss—although now that I looked around, the streets did seem pretty deserted.
A yellow cab pulled over, and Alex and I piled inside.
“The Loop!” I blurted. I wasn’t sure what our exact destination was, but I figured it’d be pretty obvious once we got down there.
I gulped. We’ll just follow the carnage.
The cab driver—a stout man with a small scar on his cheek—shot a look over his shoulder. “Downtown? Are you crazy?”
“No, we—”
“No. Get out. Get out!” His round face contorted with fear, and I hesitated. Oh shit. Of course no one in their right mind would want to go towards whatever this thing attacking downtown was.
At our momentary hesitation, the driver turned to face forward again, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “Out!”
“Okay, we’re going! Sorry.” I pressed on Alex’s side, and he slid out of the cab. Almost before the door was closed, the car peeled away from the curb, careening down the street.
“Well, shit.” Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “I doubt we’re going to find anybody willing to take us downtown. Should we have commandeered his cab?”
I almost chuckled, but my throat was too tight to let the burble of laughter escape. “We could’ve tried, but I don’t want to use force on a human.”
“So what now?”
Good question.
My gaze darted around the street. Halfway down the block, a blue Hyundai swept into a parallel parking spot. The door opened, and a dark-haired girl about my age stepped out. She was tall and slim, dressed in an outfit that looked casual but probably cost more than the fanciest clothes I’d ever owned. Her phone was pressed to her ear, and her voice floated down the street.
“I know, Mom! No, I just got back. They sent us all home for the rest of the day.”
Switching the phone to her other ear, she dropped her keys in her large purse and hustled up the sidewalk toward us.
Bingo.
“Distract her,” I murmured to Alex, then ducked around the corner of the building next to us and faded out.
He looked toward me, then did a slight double take when he realized I was no longer there. I was getting much quicker at fading, to the point where I could pop out of sight in the blink of an eye.
As the girl approached us, I darted behind her, positioning myself as close to her as I dared. When she passed by Alex, he stepped forward. “Excuse me, miss. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Hang on, Mom.” She put a hand over the phone and spoke to Alex in a rush. “There’s a terrorist attack downtown. Some kind of genetically modified super warrior or something. I don’t know.” Then, into the phone, she added, “No, Mom. I’m still here.”
While she spoke to Alex, I quickly faded back in, shoved my hand into her purse, and grabbed hold of the first thing that felt like keys.
“What the—”
The girl spun on her heel, her head whipping around just as I faded back out. For a moment, I was sure she saw me, but her eyes darted around without settling on anything. “Ugh. I’m so creeped out,” she muttered, then turned back to Alex. “I gotta go, I’m sorry. If I were you, I’d go somewhere safe and stay there.”
Pressing the phone back to her ear, she clutched her purse tightly with her other hand and sped away. As soon as she’d reached the corner and disappeared from sight, I faded back in, dangling the keys from my finger proudly.
Alex’s eyes widened. “Damn. Good thing you’ve made a vow to use your powers only for good.”
I waggled my hand back and forth. “I’m not sure stealing some poor girl’s car counts as ‘good.’ She definitely wouldn’t think so.”
Alex grabbed the keys from me. “It’s all relative. If we save some lives today, grand theft auto will seem like no big deal.”
He had a point.
Trying to tamp down worry, I hustled after Alex to the car. He unlocked it with the key fob, and I hopped into the passenger seat. My face wrinkled. The floor beneath the passenger seat was littered with empty diet soda bottles that crunched under my feet.
We hadn’t even discussed who would drive, but I was more than happy to have Alex behind the wheel. I knew how to drive, but hadn’t done it much while I was at Northwestern—everything I needed was within walking distance, so there was little need for a car.
As Alex sped down Lake Shore Drive, I grabbed his phone from the center console where he’d dropped it. “May I?”
I knew his code, but it felt rude to just punch it in without asking.
He glanced over. “Yeah, go ahead.”
I unlocked his phone, then navigated to the internet app and typed in “Chicago monster attack.” Several stories and videos popped up immediately. The stories were all of the “breaking news, few details known, check back for updates” type. Scrolling back up, I tapped one of the videos.
The thumbnail expanded, taking up the entire screen, as faint screams echoed from the small speaker. The video was jerky, probably recorded on a phone. Several people ran down the street toward whoever was filming, and the camera tracked them as they ran by. Then it whipped back toward the direction they’d come, panning so fast the scenery blurred. A car was overturned in the street, and another was wrapped around a lamppost.
A large demon appeared from around the corner. He was dressed like a human, in dark jeans and a dark t-shirt that strained across his oversized muscles. His appearance was mostly human too, except for the very inhuman shape of his face—instead of a nose, something more akin to a pig’s snout protruded from his face.
I almost laughed in relief.
This was it?
I’d seen one of these types of Fallen before. He’d chased me down the street, in fact. And as grotesquely terrifying as that pig-like snout was, I was pretty sure Alex and I could take this guy.
“It’s okay. It’s just a—”
The words died in my throat.
As the pig-demon strolled down the street, smashing car windows and laughing, something else rounded the corner behind him. Something much, much bigger.
“Oh, shit,” I breathed, as the voice of the amateur cameraman echoed me with several more expletives.
I caught a glimpse of animal-like back legs, but the Fallen was walking upright. It was covered in hair, and unlike the other demon, it hadn’t bothered to dress in human clothes—not that it would’ve been able to find anything in its size. Towering at least twenty feet tall, the monster somehow managed to make the large pig-demon in front of it look small.
As the beast lumbered forward, the video shook.
“Oh shit, man! Run! Run! Get out of here!” The voice behind the camera shouted, and the video spun away again. It jerked violently as the man sprinted down the street, phone in hand. Then it suddenly cut off.
I swallowed.
I really hoped he’d just stopped recording so he could run, rather than…
Shaking off the thought, I turned to Alex. “Drive faster.”
He hadn
’t seen the video, but he’d heard it. He took in the stark look on my face and punched the gas.
“It’s that bad?”
I nodded grimly. “Worse.”
The phone I was still clutching rang suddenly, and I almost jumped out of my skin. The number was a local one I didn’t recognize, but I swiped the screen to answer anyway. “Hello?”
“Cam! Thank goodness!” Pearl’s voice blared into the car as I put the phone on speaker.
“Pearl! What’s going on? Are you downtown?”
“Yes. So you’ve heard?” Her tone was breathless.
“Yeah. A friend of Alex’s called to check on him. We, um, commandeered a vehicle, and we’re heading towards downtown now. Are any other Guardians down there?”
She hesitated. “The Council sent a few, but they were overpowered by a group of Fallen who were lying in wait. They must have come over with the chimera. We think he was sent to draw us out. And it worked.”
Oh no.
“Where exactly is the chimera, Pearl?”
“He’s on Michigan Avenue, heading south towards the river.” She paused. “Arjun and I are going to try to stop him.”
Fear gripped my chest. “No, Pearl! Don’t! Wait for us. We’re almost there!”
But the line was dead.
I dropped the phone in my lap and turned to Alex. I didn’t even have to say it this time. He gripped the wheel tighter, and the car lurched forward, careening down Lakeshore Drive.
We’re coming, Pearl. Please wait.
16
As we took the exit off Lake Shore drive leading to Michigan Avenue, the empty soda bottles at my feet rattled at the sudden change in speed and direction. Alex slowed the car as we merged onto Michigan. Though no one but us was dumb enough to be driving downtown right now, the road was littered with abandoned cars, some with the doors still hanging open like gaping mouths.
Unfortunately, it made navigating our way down the street difficult. Alex eventually gave up on following traffic laws at all, and hopped the median to drive on the other side of the street when a three-car fender bender in front of us blocked the way.
As we drove down the normally bustling shopping district of Chicago, I stared out the window in shock. Storefronts were smashed, and what looked like large claw marks marred the facades of buildings. Several cars were wrecked. Fires blazed under the hoods of a couple of them. A pool of dark red blood ended in a smear that trailed down the sidewalk. I couldn’t see a body, but my stomach still twisted.
