The Blazing Bridge

by Carter Roy

  And then Dawkins’ hand hooked around my belt.

  With a jerk, I stopped rolling. He yanked hard and turned me, and his other hand reached out and took mine.

  “I’ve got you, Ronan!” he said. He was sliding face-first, and I was sliding feet-first, and somehow it was even worse than before.

  “We’re going to run out of roof!” I cried.

  Suddenly a chimney pipe was there, a solid black bar in the darkness that I hadn’t been able to see at all until Dawkins slammed into it with his shoulder. There was a loud pop and the groan of crumpling metal, but he held tight to Greta and me and slowed us both down.

  “What was that popping noise?” Greta asked.

  “Collarbone,” Dawkins gasped.

  I was still slowly sliding. “Thank you,” I whispered. “You saved—”

  And then: air. My feet and most of my legs left the roof.

  “I’m going over the edge!” I yelled. But then I stopped, half on and half off the slate.

  “Shh,” Dawkins said. “We don’t want to be so noisy that they look for us from up there. We’ll just wait here quietly until it’s safe.”

  My cheek pressed against the dirty slate, I fixed my eyes on the balcony. It was well lit and faraway. From that vantage, we’d be just a dark smudge on the darker rooftop. They probably wouldn’t see us.

  But that didn’t matter. Our friends were going to arrive at any moment.

  “We have to keep going,” I said, hating having to say it but knowing I’d hate myself more if I didn’t. “We have to get down and warn Diz and Sammy.”

  Dawkins made a pained noise and said, “Right. Okay. You two starfish—spread your limbs and really hug the rooftop like you love it as much as a giant pizza.”

  Greta slowly moved her arms and legs apart and then let go of his hand. She didn’t slide at all. “I’m good.”

  “Hey, I’m kind of dangling here,” I said. “If I wiggle around too much, the weight of my legs will probably drag me right over.”

  “That’s not going to happen—I’ve got you,” Dawkins said. “Try swishing each of your legs around and see if you can find anything with your feet.”

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started slowly swinging my right leg back and forth, until I was able to raise it all the way up onto—

  “There’s a rain gutter,” I said. “It runs along the edge of the roof.”

  “That’s too flimsy to hold our weight,” Dawkins said. “Try searching under it. Can you find a drainpipe? Old building like this, it will probably be a massive heavy thing.”

  I swept my right foot along the bottom edge of the gutter one way—nothing—then brought it up again and used my left foot to sweep the other side. I hit something hard.

  “There’s something over here,” I said. “Under Greta. Maybe it’s a drain pipe.”

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Dawkins said, wriggling. “Ronan, I am going to pull you all the way up onto the slate. And then I am going to shimmy down that drainpipe to the roof below. After that, I’ll guide each of you down, and if you fall, I’ll be there to catch you.”

  “That’s your plan?” I asked.

  Without answering, Dawkins strained and dragged my whole body up until my feet stopped kicking air and only hard slate was beneath my toes. “Do the starfish, Ronan.”

  I spread my arms and legs wide and pressed myself against the roof.

  “You can let go now,” I told him.

  “Ronan,” he said, “I released you a minute ago. You just didn’t notice.”

  Dawkins scooched past on his belly. “It’s right where you said it was, Ronan. But I don’t think we need it—there’s an enormous air conditioning unit tucked up against the tower, so the drop’s really not bad at all—maybe twelve feet.”

  He rolled over the edge. The sound of something heavy striking metal came up to us from below.

  A heartbeat later, he coughed and said, “That was easy! Come on, you two. I promise I’ll catch you.”

  “You going to be able to do this?” Greta asked me.

  “Absolutely,” I said, breathing deep. “Or, you know, probably.”

  “Okay,” she said, pushing off. She used the gutter to carefully lower herself. “It’s like gymnastics,” she said. “You were a gymnast, right?” And then she disappeared over the edge.

  Dawkins grunted. “Your turn now, Ronan.”

  I copied Greta, using the gutter to slow myself, then eased my body down and let go.

  Dawkins caught me and fell back onto his butt. “Nicely done, you two,” he said. “Now to warn our friends.”

  The air conditioner unit was as big as an RV, and like an RV, it had ladder handholds built in. Getting down to the tar paper–covered expanse of the roof was a cinch.

  A long, sad meow came from a dozen feet away.

  Dawkins went to the gym bag, unzipped it, and took out Grendel. “That insane Hand appears to have vacated this poor cat. Sorry about the rough treatment, puss,” he said, scratching its head. He gently put it back into the bag. “We’ll get you someplace safe and give you a nice plate of tuna.”

  Greta shook her cell phone. “Sammy’s not answering! Why isn’t he answering?” She stabbed at the screen and said, “I’m going to try my dad.”

  “My mom,” I said. “They’re coming here, too, right? We need to warn them.”

  “All in good time,” Dawkins said, leading the way to the fire escape. “First we must get safely down to the street.”

  Greta went first, her feet ringing on the metal ladder.

  I was about to climb after her when I heard a shout from behind us and the sound of something heavy smacking the rooftop.

  A Bend Sinister agent, dazed from having slid down the slate roof and right off the edge.

  Dawkins ran over and swung his sword hilt-first against the man’s temple. “One down! Let’s not dally and run up the score. Ronan, the fire escape!”

  “Wait,” I said, pointing at the street. “Look!”

  On the sidewalk, a familiar cab was parked at the curb, right behind two white vans. Based on the pink hair, the person next to the cab had to be Diz, and the person beside her was probably Sammy. Facing them was a group of ten people I was overjoyed to see: the Blood Guard. Greta’s dad was down there, and so was my mom.

  “About time,” Dawkins said. “Let’s hurry down and join them.”

  But before I’d reached even the first landing of the fire escape, everyone had already gone inside. I took out my phone and tried Sammy again. This time, he answered.

  “Ronan!” His voice came from the chunky silver necklace I was still wearing under my shirt. “Everyone’s here—we’re on our way up to Agatha’s now. Had to hotwire the elevator, because the doorman’s missing.”

  “There are Bend Sinister agents all over the apartment!” I dropped my phone back into my pocket and kept talking while following Greta down the rusty stairs. “The Guard needs to be prepared for a fight.”

  Sammy said something, and I heard a voice I happily recognized as Ogabe’s say, “Is that so?” And then an alarm rang.

  “Okay, we stopped the elevator,” Sammy said. “We’re getting out on the floor below Agatha’s and taking the stairs.” Someone said something, and then Sammy said, “Fine, okay! Everyone else is going to the apartment. But I’m supposed to take the elevator back down, because I get left out of everything. Where are you guys?”

  “On the fire escape at the front of the building,” I said. “We had to get out in a hurry. But let them know Agatha and Greta’s mom are still inside, in a safe room on the first floor.”

  We heard him tell everything to the rest of the Guard, and then he got back on the phone. “Okay, your mom says to be careful. I’m coming down. See you guys in a couple minutes.”

  We’d reached the final landing, and Dawkins carefully walked out along the final narrow metal staircase until its counterweight rose and it tipped down to the ground. Greta went after him, and I came
last.

  I fell to my knees on the sidewalk. It was wonderfully solid.

  “No call for melodrama, Ronan,” Dawkins said, pulling me to my feet. “It wasn’t that high up.”

  Greta took Grendel out of the bag and kissed his head. “Sorry, little man! But everything’s okay now.” He mrowed in confusion, but seemed happy enough to be in Greta’s arms.

  “Maybe we should go in and help?” I asked, thinking about my mom. “We don’t know how many Bend Sinister agents are inside.”

  “I can tell you how many of us are outside,” said a woman’s voice. “Six.”

  She stepped out from between the white vans. She was small, dark haired, and wearing a well-tailored suit. “I am Legion,” she said.

  And then her voice-but-not-her-voice came from our left, from the mouth of a huge guy with white hair. He had a Tesla gun aimed directly at Greta’s heart. “I am the one who is many.”

  Greta dropped Grendel and held her hands up in the air.

  Beside the huge guy was the dark-haired woman from the subway platform and Times Square. She had a sword pointed straight at my eye. “I speak through all,” she said.

  From behind us came two more Bend Sinister agents, both armed. The bald guy who’d been eating the pizza slice held a Tesla gun inches away from Dawkins’ head, while the redheaded woman touched a blade to his chest. “Defy me and you defy an army of millions!” said the redhead.

  “Millions is a bit rich, isn’t it?” Dawkins said.

  A black panel van pulled alongside us on the street.

  “Get in,” said the small woman.

  The redheaded woman and the bald man took our weapons, while the huge white-haired man pulled our arms behind our backs and fastened them with thin plastic strips—zip ties, Diz had called them.

  The woman spoke again. “Miss Birk will escape the Blood Guard, as she always has. In the meantime, I will take you three someplace where we can get to know each other a bit better.”

  “Sounds ducky,” Dawkins said.

  The bald guy slid open the side door of the van, and we were shoved face-first onto the floor. The huge guy grabbed our legs, rolled us the rest of the way inside, and then climbed in after, followed by his three fellow agents.

  Last was the redheaded woman. She paused to pull the door shut.

  Before she did, I glimpsed Sammy step out onto the sidewalk. He looked around, confused, then bent down to pet Grendel. A moment later, the cell phone in my pocket thrummed.

  But by then the door was closed and we were rolling away.

  CHAPTER 15

  ZIP TIE MEETS ZIPPO

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked, hoping that Sammy could hear even though the Bluetooth necklace was between my chest and the dirty floor of the van.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” said the small dark-haired woman—the Hand who called herself Legion. “Three, collect their cell phones.”

  While Bald Pizza Eater patted down our pockets and took our phones, the exotic-looking woman zip-tied our feet.

  The bald agent handed the phones to Legion, and I watched as she dropped them into a silver Mylar envelope.

  “Faraday bag,” she said, smiling so that dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Blocks signals so that no one can use these pesky things to track us. Now where’s my cat?”

  “Grendel?” Greta asked, rolling her shoulders to try to get a hand out of the zip tie. “We left him back there.”

  “You left him behind?” Legion said, angry. “First you put him into that terrible bag, and now you leave him alone on the streets of New York? What kind of monsters are you?”

  “The bag was for you,” Dawkins said. “To stop you from seeing where we were.”

  “Oh, I know,” Legion said, “but though I could see nothing from inside the bag, I heard plenty. Once Birk arrived, all I had to do was exit the cat and return to my body, then call her team to learn your location. After that, it was a simple matter to show up and capture you for her.”

  “That doesn’t sound simple at all,” Dawkins said.

  “And if you’re capturing us for her, then why are you driving us away from her?” I asked.

  “You three are far too valuable a prize,” Legion said. “Miss Birk will return to the site of the Reckoning, and then I will deliver you.”

  “We’re a prize?” Greta said. “That’s … weird.”

  “Former Head Truelove thinks you three are valuable for some reason,” Legion said, “so we’re going to take a closer look at you. And if one of you truly is special, you’ll have a role in the Reckoning.”

  “Ooh, that sounds important,” Dawkins said, glancing at me. “What is it, some kind of black-tie party?”

  Legion’s smiled flattened. The bald agent drew back his leg and kicked Dawkins in the head.

  “I don’t appreciate your tone,” Legion said.

  “Few do,” Dawkins said, wincing.

  “Will my dad be there?” I asked.

  Legion rocked back in her seat, squeaking out high-pitched laughter. “Your dad? No. Your dad imperiled our entire project. He had the prize, and he let it slip through his fingers. And he failed to secure the Damascene ’Scope.” She stopped laughing abruptly. “Where is it, by the way?”

  “I expect it’s a mound of slag in the furnace of a steel foundry by now,” Dawkins said.

  “We feared the Guard would do something drastic like that,” Legion said. “Which is why we continued with the other option.”

  “Ah,” Dawkins said, “is this that Reckoning shindig you mentioned a moment ago?”

  The bald man kicked him again.

  “Be quiet,” Legion said.

  After a series of looping turns, the van idled while the driver got out and opened some creaky metal doors. When he climbed back in and drove us forward, the darkness outside the windows changed: it went from night sky lit by streetlamps to bare brick walls.

  We came to a halt and the Hand’s agents clambered out, then reached in and lifted out each of us like a stick of wood. They carried us to a flat dolly as big as a queen-size bed and laid us on it faceup—Greta, me, then Dawkins. The huge guy got behind the dolly and followed Legion and the rest of her team, steering us down a ramp into a big old room.

  Or I guess it’d be more accurate to say it was tall. The walls were made of red brick and rose up fifty or sixty feet. Most every inch of floor space was filled by teetering stacks of crates piled four or five high; coils of cable, mounds of metal rods, cardboard cartons, and tons of other junk. A mountain of giant plastic-wrapped spools teetered in one corner.

  A single flood lamp dangled from the ceiling, throwing a harsh light on everything and filling the empty spaces with shadows.

  This had to be the place my dad had taken Mrs. Sustermann. But if he’d been thrown out of the Bend Sinister, why would he show up at one of its strongholds?

  “I like what you’ve done with the place!” Dawkins said.

  Legion walked back to the cart. “Keep talking. There are fates worse than death, you know. What would happen if we just weighted you down and threw you, a Blood Guard Overseer, into the river? You’d sit on the riverbed for years—decades! centuries!—unable to move, unable to die, unable to live.”

  “I do love a good bath,” Dawkins said. “So we’re near a river?”

  Legion reached into Dawkins’ shirt and yanked out his Verity Glass. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind.” Then she did the same to me, pausing only to lift the chunky silver necklace off my chest. “What’s this?”

  “All the kids are wearing them,” I said. “In school, I mean.”

  “Fashion,” she said with disgust. She let it drop back, then searched Greta. “Why doesn’t this girl have a Verity Glass?”

  “My mom,” Greta said quickly. “I was using it to prove to her that the Blood Guard are real, and she still has it.”

  Legion clucked her tongue. “You need to be more careful with your valuables!” Turning to us, she said, “Tel
l you what: I’ll keep the girl close by.” She motioned, and two agents—the bald one she called Three and the exotic woman—picked up Greta and carried her over to a metal chair. “Anything strange happens, one of my team will carve her up with a sword. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds pretty mean,” I said. “I hate to hear what you have planned for us.”

  “Oh, nothing fancy. You two will be cooling your heels in a cell until Miss Birk returns.” She waved her hand over her head, and the huge guy wheeled us through an archway and up a ramp into a hallway. He parked the cart beside an open metal door to our left. Then he picked up Dawkins and heaved him into the dark.

  There was a sound of something heavy falling over, and Dawkins shouted out in pain.

  The huge guy turned to grab me next, but I’d already sat up. “I can totally get in there by myself,” I told him. “Save you the trouble! It’s no problem!” I swung my feet to the floor, stood, then hopped around him and through the doorway.

  He slammed the door behind me, turned a key, and left.

  I couldn’t see a thing in the lightless room. “Jack?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Dawkins said, sounding pained. “He threw me on top of a big pile of rusty somethings, and they fell over on top of me.”

  “Sorry.” And then, hoping that somehow the Bluetooth could still talk to the phone, I said, “Sammy?”

  “Why are you calling for Sammy?” he asked. “He’s not here.”

  “I’ve still got Diz’s Bluetooth necklace.”

  “Ah! Sure.”

  From the dark in front of me, I could hear a squeaking noise. “What is that noise? Are there rats in here?”

  “The noise is me. Some of these rusted things are sharp. I’m using one to saw through the plastic of the zip ties.”

  “This is the place my dad took Mrs. Sustermann, isn’t it?” I asked. “But if he was thrown out of the Bend Sinister, why turn up here?”

  “Maybe he went to deliver his prize only to discover once he arrived that he’d nabbed the wrong person.”

  There was a snap, some rustling, and then Dawkins struck a flame from his Zippo lighter. “Tell you what,” he said. “You stay by the door. I’m going to burn off the ties around my feet and then come and free you.”