Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Robert Liparulo

  On the third shot, something else reached her ears—loud if she could hear it through the shots and tinnitus. She emptied the handgun, looked around. Tyler was pulling at her dress, calling her name. He looked and pointed: the wall opposite the door was shaking, cracks appearing. Something thudded against it from the other side, and the plaster pushed in, the shape of a foot.

  “They’re breaking through the other side, from my bedroom.” Jagger had said he wanted to line all the walls as well as the door in metal, but he hadn’t got around to it yet. Who’d have thought the need would come so soon—or ever?

  She reloaded, put two rounds through the back wall—just to let them know she could—and the rest into the ceiling. Looking pretty good up there, shattered and broken. She picked up the aluminum baseball bat Jagger had leaned into the back corner and stood.

  She handed Tyler the gun and whispered, “You remember how to be safe with this?”

  He nodded, taking it with both hands and pointing it at the floor.

  “When I say go, shoot through the back wall where they were kicking. All six rounds and count to five between each round.”

  “But they stopped trying to—”

  The back wall rattled with a heavy blow. A new crack appeared, a piece of plaster fell away. Tyler yelled and put a bullet hole in it.

  “Not yet,” Beth whispered. “I don’t want them to hear me breaking through the roof. Get it?”

  Tyler nodded, grinning despite his fear, and for a second Beth felt really cool because that’s what she was in his eyes.

  “Go,” she said.

  He fired and she rammed the bat up against a plank. It lifted but fell down again. Another shot, another ram. The plank lifted, canted, and fell off to the side. Bang! She shoved the bat through a splinted board. Two more of each and she had a hole almost large enough for Tyler to squeeze through.

  She crouched to reload, saying, “I can’t reach the highest splintered boards. I’m going to lift you to that shelf. Wait for my shots, then use the bat to break them, okay?”

  He nodded.

  “As soon as you can fit through, go. Run to the Colosseum. You can go up or down from there, depending on what’s happening.”

  “But you—”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Another kick to the wall, and a socked foot appeared. She shot at it, but it was gone nearly as quickly as it’d appeared.

  She stood and pulled supplies off the shelf: the plastic barrel of water, the first-aid kit . . . stuff falling to the floor. A kick and the hole got bigger. It would be easier for the Tribe to break through now that they’d knocked out a hole. She resisted the urge to fire again, wanting to save the remaining five rounds for Tyler’s assault on the ceiling in case he needed them.

  “Come on.” She lifted him up, aiming to get his rump on the shelf. He stopped rising halfway up, and she felt his arms around her neck. He said, “I love you.”

  She turned to kiss his cheek. “I love you too. Now get out of here. Go.”

  On the shelf, he got both knees under him. He could easily reach the planks she couldn’t. She handed him the bat. “Wait for me to fire.”

  Keeping one hand on him, making sure he didn’t fall off, she pointed the gun and waited for the foot. The wall rattled, plaster flew, and the foot appeared. She fired, missed . . . Tyler smashed a section of roof away. She saw him going for another punch and fired. Perfect timing.

  A face appeared in the hole. Grinning . . . crazy . . . Phin. “Yoohoo,” he said, then pulled away just as she fired. Wood shards dropped onto her head. She glanced up. “That’s big enough,” she whispered, emphatic. “You can get through. Go!”

  She didn’t think Phin had seen what they were doing—the shelf would have blocked his view of the hole—or noticed that Tyler was not on the floor. But she didn’t want to take any chances. Tyler had to go now before it was too late. She fired into the back wall and looked up. Only his back side and legs extended down from the hole. He kicked and wiggled, rising up. Then he stopped. His necklace was caught on a splintered board. He thrashed, and the chain broke, dropping the bullet onto her forehead. She heard it hit the floor beneath her as Tyler’s feet kicked up and out of the hole.

  A hand grabbed her ankle. She screamed and looked down. Phin had thrust his entire arm through the breach in the back wall. She shot at it, grazing his forearm. He released her ankle, but didn’t retract his arm.

  Stupid, she scolded herself. Shoot at the hole—more of him there: shoulder, bicep. She aimed and fired. Click. Out . . . and he knew it.

  He began searching for her. His hand swept back and forth, slapped at the floor. She backed into a corner, slid down, reached for the box of shells. He found it first, seized it, pulled it out through the hole. He started kicking at the edges again, more enthusiastically, making it wider and wider.

  She jumped at the shelf, fell back down. Tried again, pressing her bare toes against the door. She couldn’t quite get up.

  “Mom.” A hoarse whisper. Tyler was leaning back into the hole, his hand reaching for her. She raised her hand quickly, before she lost her balance. He had her, turning his hand into a vise around her wrist. He tugged, grunting.

  Below, the smashing sounds stopped.

  She got one leg on the shelf. Tyler pulled. Her other foot hopped up the door.

  “They’re going through the roof!” Phin yelled.

  “Unlock the door!” Nevaeh yelled. “Phin! The door!”

  Beth glanced down, past her hip. He was coming through, glaring and smiling a tight-lipped smile, a snake slithering to dinner. She pushed hard off the door, got her other leg onto the shelf. She rose, her arm going through the hole, Tyler backing up to pull her. Her head popped through.

  Tyler let go so she could get her hands on the roof on opposite sides of the hole. He rose onto his knees, sat back on his heels, smiled. His face snapped up, looking at something behind her, his face becoming terrified. Footsteps on the roof, loud: clomp, clomp, clomp . . .

  A body sailed over her, tackled Tyler. Jordan—rolling with Tyler down the slope of the roof. The two boys disappeared over the edge.

  Beth screamed.

  [ 50 ]

  The boy Immortal—Jordan—broke Tyler’s fall. They landed on the wide wall of the compound eight feet below the roof of the apartments. Jordan landed on his back; Tyler landed on Jordan. Jordan’s eyes flashed wide as he tried to pull in a breath that wouldn’t come.

  Tyler had knocked the wind out of himself once, falling off a monk cell and landing on his stomach. It was scary, needing air and not getting it. He imagined that’s what drowning was like.

  Jordan looked scared, staring at Tyler as if he wanted help.

  Yeah, right.

  Tyler climbed off him, pain in his knee. He must have hit it on the wall. He limped away from Jordan so the kid couldn’t grab him. He only had a few more seconds before Jordan recovered. He saw the weird boots Jordan wore, six-inch soles, attached to black leg braces that went all the way to his hips. A round disk connected a lower brace to an upper brace on the side of his knees.

  That must be how he crossed the roof so fast.

  While he was looking at Mom, so happy to see her coming out through the hole, he’d caught movement with his eyes, and the boy was already on the roof, bounding toward him.

  Stupid Tribe and their gadgets. First invisibility suits, now these things. So not fair. Cheaters.

  He thought about taking the boots, using them for himself, but they looked clamped on in a lot of places. He’d never get even part of one off before Jordan recovered enough to fight him.

  He looked up at the edge of the roof. “Mom!”

  “Tyler!” Just her voice. “Run, Ty! Now!”

  “But—!”

  “Obey me! Run! I’ll find you!”

  He had to go past Jordan to get to the Colosseum. He’s going to get up any second and come after me, him and those boots. Tyler ran without looking back. Surprised
to make it to the corner, he stopped at the rear wall—higher than the one he was on, a lot lower than the Colosseum.

  Only then did he glance back. Jordan was rolling over, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, looking at him.

  Tyler looked at the roof of the apartments. Given time, he could probably climb up that exposed beam, get his hands on the edge, and pull himself up. But he didn’t have time. Jordan was trying to stand, bracing himself with one hand against the back wall of the apartment building.

  Tyler looked up to the top edge of the Colosseum. Twelve feet, at least. Only one way to go. He climbed onto the top of the rear wall and ran toward the next corner, putting the Colosseum between him and Jordan . . . at least until the boot boy caught up with him.

  [ 51 ]

  Beth had almost cried when she heard Tyler call her. An image flashed in her mind: an angel—bright and glowing, millions of sparks seeming to come out of his body, swirling around it, trailing after it—moving fast to catch her son. It was just a thought, spawned from the prayer she’d instinctively prayed as he went over the edge. Her mind’s way of seeing God’s hand. But she wondered if it was something left over from the vision the Stone had given her. One of the side effects Jagger had talked about? Her imagination . . . or God?

  She remembered the wall. They would have had to roll eight feet to go over that. Not impossible considering how fast they were moving when they went over the edge. Maybe Jordan had taken the big plunge: Tyler had not sounded encumbered by the boy when he was calling.

  She had just wiggled her shoulders through the hole, scraping them against splintered planks, when a hand grabbed her ankle. She yanked and kicked, trying desperately to pull herself through. She felt nails bite into her skin and realized it was Nevaeh who had hold of her.

  What was Phin doing? He would have come through the fissure he’d made in the closet wall and unlocked the door for Nevaeh. Then what? Watch Nevaeh? Help her? Or come out onto the roof? She bet it would be the roof. And he’d be moving fast.

  Instead of yanking at her leg, fighting both Nevaeh and the too-small hole, she dipped down, into the closet—hard to think of it as a panic room now. She ducked her head in enough to see Nevaeh’s glaring eyes. Giving the woman more of her leg had put Nevaeh’s arm in an awkward position. Beth twisted it and pulled free. She kicked Nevaeh in the face, and as she was falling back, Beth dropped lower, stretched, and kicked it again. But Nevaeh was tough. She would bounce off the wall like a fighter off ropes and grab Beth again.

  Beth shot up through the hole, feeling the broken planks tear at her dress and her flesh. She got her feet directly below her on the shelf, jumped and—

  An image in her head, not the focus of her thoughts, but like someone in the distance: an angel lifting her.

  —she pushed with her hands on either side of the hole, coming out and rolling at the same time. She felt Nevaeh’s claws graze a foot. A second later Beth was on the roof, getting to her feet.

  No time to think, but she did: Tyler should be gone, climbing down into the compound from the wall by the Colosseum. They would expect her to go for the nearest point of escape, the edge of the roof where Tyler and Jordan had gone over. Beth expected Phin and Nevaeh to come from the other side, the front edge of the roof, so that was out. The Colosseum was at the far end of the apartments; she’d still be running for it when they spotted her.

  She went the other way, to the steep, sloping roof at the near end of the building. Their living room was directly below it, and thinking how the ceiling looked from the couch, it seemed impossible that she’d be able to get down it without tumbling. She heard a noise—a lot of noises—behind her, on the other side of the roof’s peak. Two seconds to move.

  She scrambled onto the slope, and sure enough she couldn’t stay on it. She leaned back, sat, slid over the tiles on her butt. She went over the edge, starting to twist sideways. She sailed through the air, her tailbone heading for the stone top of the wall, which jogged in here—probably the reason the apartment building started where it did. She tried lowering her feet and hands to cushion the impact and hit the wall a foot from its inside edge. She heard a snap—and her arm flared with molten steel pouring through her bones into her shoulder, back, and chest. The momentum of her fall tossed her over the wall and she fell again—to the narrow roof of a storage room. She rolled off that and plunged eight feet to a terrace. She landed on her feet and backside, sparing the already injured arm, until jolting back and landing on it as well.

  She wanted to cry out in pain but somehow bit it back. Among the psychedelic flashes of purple and black her reeling brain displayed, she imagined an angel holding his hand to her mouth, holding a finger to his lips—shhhh—looking up, as if at the apartment roof above.

  Where’ve you been! she demanded in her head, and the image vaporized.

  She gulped air, gulped it to keep from screaming, gulped it because she didn’t know what else to do. Lying on her back on the terrace, she could see the peak of the apartment roof, the edge she’d jumped over to reach the slope. Voices streaming over it like air currents, growing louder.

  She rolled onto her side and pushed and dragged herself to the storage room door. Reached up and turned the handle. She pulled it open, sat upright to get past the door, and slid inside.

  She pulled the door closed.

  [ 52 ]

  Tyler peered along the length of the back wall, hiding around the corner of the Colosseum, at the opposite end from the apartments. He’d run along the top of the wall, thinking, How can I get to a safe place? Where could he drop down from the wall, into the compound, into one of hundreds of nooks and crannies and forgotten places in the monastery? Jordan had said he knew St. Catherine’s better than he did. If that was true, was there anyplace he could hide that Jordan wouldn’t find him?

  Well, Tyler wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  He pulled his head back from the corner, scanned the wall that lay perpendicular to him: the east wall that faced the archeological dig. It would be rough going at first, the wall here crumbling, its top shaped like the squiggly lines of the EKG printout Mom had let him keep from his stay in the hospital. At the center of its length, the wall became a building, like a castle. It was where the original monk cells were located, built into the wall. If he could get there, he could drop down to the walkway outside the top row of cells and keep going lower until he reached the roof of the Chapel of Martyrs. From there it was an easy jump to the ground.

  He turned, slid his face out from the wall enough to see around it, and felt his stomach tighten. Jordan was on the wall, running toward him fast, taking bounding leaps. Those boots! Then the boy stopped to inspect the area outside the wall.

  Keep looking, Tyler thought, and pushed away from the Colosseum. He jumped down the first trench-like dip in the wall, feeling the crumbled stone bite into his bare feet. He scrambled up the other side, down again and up . . . onto the flat, undamaged wall. He sprinted toward the wall’s wide center, the monk cells, then stopped. He could hear Jordan coming, close to the corner behind him. There was no time to drop to the walkway and move off it without being seen.

  He considered hiding behind the parapet wall, which lined the top outside edge of the monk-cell structure on three sides. But that was no hiding place. He peered over the edge at hard dirt and rocks sixty feet below . . . and something else: the little meditation deck, so small Tyler couldn’t lie on it without his feet hanging over. A railing lined its perimeter, with a door leading to a monk cell on its wall side. It was about a dozen feet below the top of the wall. A beam for hanging banners and lanterns in the old days jutted out from the wall four feet down. He lay on his stomach, pushed his legs over the edge, and glanced toward the corner. Jordan came into view, swinging his gaze from the archeological site to the ruts of the crumbling wall. Tyler slid over, felt his feet on the beam, and let go of the wall. His feet slipped off, his stomach hit the beam, draping his body over it like a wet towel, and h
e fell to the deck. It shuddered and thunked down a few inches, a space appearing between it and the wall.

  He lay there on his back, feeling the texture of the weathered boards pressing against his bare skin. He was afraid to move, afraid the deck would either come away from the wall completely or crumble or make noise that would give him away. So he stayed motionless, looking up at the beam and the edge of the wall beyond it, waiting for Jordan to peek over it.

  [ 53 ]

  Even with the Austin boots, Nevaeh felt as though she was about to pitch forward and go over the far end of the apartment building. If Beth had come this way, she’d be a bloody mess somewhere below. She reached the edge and leaned over, arms waving behind her for balance, acting like Jordan. Wall directly below. Even farther down, a terrace.

  She turned and started back up to the peak, where Phin stood watching. “She’s not here,” Nevaeh said.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “How can you hear anything over your music?” She reached the peak and straddled it.

  He used the tip of his dagger to lift a wire off his chest, showing her he’d taken the earbuds out.

  “She’s still not there,” she said. “If she did go over and survive, I’d have seen her getting away.” She pointed at him. “She’d better not be dead.”

  “What I’d do?” Phin said. “I got us into that closet.”

  “And drove them out.” She rubbed the side of her face where Beth had kicked her twice.

  “Then she went over there.” He pointed at the outside edge of the roof, below which lay the compound’s wall.

  “And our looking for your imagined sounds gave her time to get away.” She pulled the radio out of her pocket and held it to her mouth. “Toby? Did you see where she went? Toby?” She looked up at the outcropping and didn’t spot him. “Where is he? I swear, that kid.” She scanned the compound. “There’s Jordan. What’s he doing?”