“You know that stolen power is never yours to keep.” The voice came from behind him, familiar and strange in equal measure, and he turned to see a well-dressed man entering his domain. “Talin Moray. You know this to be true. You must trade for it, or it will consume you.”
“I bow to no such rules,” said Talin. “Who are you, to come in here and tell me my business?”
“I’m the one who made you,” said the man.
“Oh,” said Talin, laughing as he understood. “This is too rich. No, no, no. It is I who made you.”
The man shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I know so,” said Talin. “Whose body do you wear?”
“Your son’s,” said the man. “Your only child.”
“I have no son,” said Talin.
“If you say so,” said the man again. He was familiar, something scratching like an irritating insect at the back of Talin’s mind.
Could it be? “Tell me,” said Talin. “Tell me your story.”
“You know my story,” said the man. “You want to ask a different question.”
“Yes, yes,” said Talin, the irritation creeping into his voice. He waved a hand. “Tell me the story of my son.”
“What will you trade?” said the man. “You can’t take the story from me, like the power you pull around you like old curtains. It shuts out the light, Talin, and you can’t see what is true in this world anymore.”
“Trade?” Talin shrugged. “A moment of your life. You live a tiny sliver of time longer, at my pleasure.”
“Your son’s life,” said the man. “You’ve already taken mine.”
Ah. There it is. “Yes, Raeni Williams,” said Talin. “I know your voice. I remember taking your life with my own hands.”
“You didn’t take my life,” said the man. “You gave me a path to a different way of living.” He looked tired, like a worn-out old photo, the colors of life fading around the edges. “Let me tell you the story of your son. He was born the product of incest after you raped your sister. Another woman you left for dead, but she — unlike me — lived. She bore her shame for years, held it up for all to see, but no one wanted to look. She grew heavy with your child. She called him Ajay, and gave him the surname of her father’s house. Ajay Lewiss is your son, Talin Moray, and he stands before you.”
“Then all I need to do is pull you out,” said Talin, “like an oyster from its shell.”
“That’s one argument that can be made,” said the man — Ajay Lewiss. “Another is that you tried to kill me once, and failed.”
“I succeeded,” said Talin. “You are a dead woman wearing a body that is not yours.”
“Who are you to lecture me on taking things from people?” said Ajay. “You have robbed an entire city of will.”
“Raeni, Raeni, Raeni,” said Talin, tsking at the end. “I don’t want to lecture you. You’ve come here wearing a different skin. You think I care? You think that I won’t tear the life from you like I did before? This man — he is not my son. How long have you lived inside him? How much of him is left?”
“I think if you were going to tear the life from me,” said Ajay, “that you would have done it already.”
“You think wrong,” said Talin. He paused for a moment. “Or at least, you have the wrong reasons. My son holds no place in my heart. I don’t know him. But others do. He lives inside the heart of another, does he not?”
“You are blind, as always,” said Ajay, but there was something hiding under the faded face he wore. Yes, thought Talin. You are nervous about something.
“We’ll see,” said Talin. He turned back to the windows overlooking the city.
“You mistake my words, Talin,” said Ajay, his voice carrying across the room. “You think that I don’t know that the Shield cares for this body. You think that I don’t know that her Pack will not cross the dangers you’ve set against them. You think wrong.”
“Wrong?” Talin turned back to Ajay. “You think they will come for you?”
“I know they will,” said Ajay. “They just needed another reason. Am I a traitor they must kill? Am I a friend they must defend? Either face serves equally well. They will come here, and they will kill you.”
“Because,” said Talin, “you cannot.”
“Because,” said Ajay, “if I kill you, you’ll come back like the black sickness you are. I taught you too well. You know my tricks, although you lacked the strength before. The Night, though. The Night you carry, the strength you’ve stolen? The Night will have its revenge.” He smiled at Talin, a bitter, crooked expression. “And then, I will have my revenge.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
“It’s a crappy plan,” said John. He was shouting over the noise of the rotors, the wings of their Black Hawk beating the air as the machine carried them across a damned city.
This place was always lost.
“It’s a great plan,” said Val, the unfamiliar — yet memory perfect — flight controls around him. The cyclic stick had felt natural as soon as his hand had touched it, yet he’d never piloted a helicopter in his life.
Had he? He remembered speaking with such authority on it.
“We need to go in through the roof,” said Val. “Save us walking up a hundred flights of stairs.”
“You getting old?” John had looked at him across a table overlaid with a map of Chicago.
“I’m getting dead,” Val said. “Virus, remember?”
“Sure, roof, whatever.” John hooked a thumb at Rex. “Bet you the old guy could do a hundred flights of stairs. He’s got forty years on you.”
“Is he dying of a virus?” But the plan was workable — hit the top of the tower, where Talin Moray was likely to sit. He wasn’t the kind of man who lurked in the belly of a structure like that; he would want a penthouse view of the city he owned.
“Okay,” said Carlisle. “Roof, I get the theory. Do we have a way to get there?”
“Helicopter,” said Val. “Two Black Hawks. I found them earlier.”
“You can’t fly a helicopter,” said Carlisle.
“Sure I can,” said Val. “I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home.”
Carlisle blinked at him. “What?”
Val sighed, rubbing his face. “Doesn’t matter. Look, I can fly it.”
“There’s no pad at the top of Trump Tower,” said Rex.
“We’ll make one,” said Danny. “Get me up there, and I’ll get you a place to park.”
Val was taking the helicopter up the Chicago River, keeping the machine right on the deck. He didn’t know what made him want to do that, Talin wasn’t likely to be packing radar, but it seemed … it seemed … right. He swung the machine over the water, rotors tipping in the cool air, and kicked the sound system up louder.
There was something about Thunderstuck that seemed fitting.
Trump Tower approached, the structure poking above Chicago’s skyline in glimmering magnificence. Val had never stayed there, never really had the chance to, but he knew it was some kind of luxury hotel. The place where your moneyed betters could enjoy a stay in the heart of the city, probably get a nice view over the proletariat. Five stars all the way.
It had seen better days.
The silvered tower was pockmarked, windows shattered and open like missing teeth in an otherwise perfect smile. In some windows, curtain fabric was fluttering out into the cold air. Val tipped the helicopter into a turn, circling around the tower. The Black Hawk was loud around them — the machine had been built for a purpose, and that purpose wasn’t comfort.
“It’s a crappy plan, because what kind of idiot knocks on the front door?” John pointed out the open door of the helicopter. “Who punched out all the windows?”
Danny’s hair was swirling around her face in a red halo. She was grinning with delight as she leaned out the open door, one hand holding the top of the door frame almost absently as the helicopter yawed away from under her. She had such an embodiment of, of—
&n
bsp; Joy.
—that Val wanted this moment to last. Forever, if that wasn’t too much to ask.
“The plan was always going to be crappy,” said Carlisle, tightening the straps that held her down as she glared at Danny. “We’re outnumbered what, two million to five?”
“Your math is good,” shouted Rex. He was squinting against the cold of the air flowing through the cabin. “Does she have to have the door open?”
“You ask her to shut it,” said Carlisle, tugging at her straps again.
“What happens if they squirrel out the bottom?” John was standing — of course — but bracing himself against the roof. “Shouldn’t we have a team down there?”
“What team?” said Val. “This is it. You know we’re not bringing Adalia and Just James into this.”
“I just want someone there,” said John, “with a catcher’s mitt.”
Val made the Black Hawk claw up through the air, Danny laughing as the helicopter soared. He brought the machine closer to the top of the tower. “How close you need us, baby?”
“Say,” said John, looking out over Danny’s shoulder. “There’s a couple dudes out there.”
“A who?” Val peered out the side of the cabin. “No shit.”
There was a cluster of people on the roof of the building. One of them was holding a tube.
That’s not a tube.
Val had a moment to wonder how you get a rocket launcher in Chicago — but hey, it’s Chicago, right — then he was making the helicopter slew sideways through the air. He caught a spark of light as the rocket fired, the trail of smoke behind it appearing faster than thought. The shot went below them as the helicopter’s engines roared.
“Wait—” said John, and Val caught a glimpse of Danny, teeth bared. She’d backed up to the other side of the cabin, dropped into a sprinter’s crouch, and then ran out the open door. The last glimpse Val caught of her was the back of her shoe as she launched herself from the side of the helicopter.
“Oh,” said Rex. “Oh my.”
Val watched, heart in his mouth — she’ll be okay, of course she’ll be okay — as Danny’s jump took her in an arc through the air to the top of the tower. She landed, rolled — and was already sprinting towards the man holding the launcher.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” said John. “Was it?”
The man with the launcher had seen Danny jump, had already dropped the spent tube, but the huddle of people were raising weapons and pointing them at Danny. All but one, who was standing by a turret.
A God-damned machine gun turret. In Chicago. Even Trump wasn’t ostentatious enough to have one of those mounted on the roof of his five-star hotel. That shit wasn’t factory fitment, and it was firing right at them. Val heard the shots chew the outside of the Black Hawk and he spun the machine, turning the open door away from the line of fire. Bullets rattled against the frame of the helicopter and something groaned in the belly of the beast. The helicopter’s engines started to labor, something wrong — a round luckier than most burrowing in somewhere soft and vulnerable.
Front of the building it is. He had to put the bird down before it fell out of the sky.
As the Black Hawk descended, he caught a glimpse of Danny, hair bright in the morning sun. She’d lifted the man with the launcher and tossed him over the side of the tower. He caught a glimpse of gleaming, yellow eyes before she turned back to the group around her and went to work.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
“This kids’ table stuff is getting old,” said Just James. He was spinning his Gameboy — or whatever it was, Adalia didn’t really know — between his fingers. He’d stretched out on the couch, feet hanging over the end. Adalia liked his sandy hair. She found herself watching him. She looked away, feeling guilty without knowing why.
“How can it get old?” She looked at him from under her hair. “We’ve only just got here.”
“Right,” he said, blinking. “What I mean is—”
“You want to die,” said Adalia. She looked across at Gabriel, and the guilt intensified.
Just James blinked again. “Uh.”
“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” said Adalia, but she did. She wanted it to stop this boy — this young, beautiful man — from doing something that she couldn’t fix. “What I mean is—”
“He wants to show off to the girl,” said Gabriel. “Guys can’t help it. See a pretty girl, and you lose any hope of logical thought.”
He thinks I’m pretty. “What I mean is, there’s a thousand zombies out there.”
“Aren’t you, like, like, like,” said Just James, one hand groping through the air as if he’d find the word there, “a sorcerer?”
Gabriel snorted, black lashes batting. She wanted to reach out to touch his hair, push it away from his eyes. She clenched her hands together instead, then used her fingers to straighten her shirt. “I’m nothing like that. I don’t know.” She looked sideways at Just James, wanting to be somewhere else. Wanting to be right here. “I don’t know what I am.”
“But you can see things,” said Just James, pulling his long legs off the couch, planting Sketchers on the floor. He leaned forward. “You can … can you see the future?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Gabriel, shaking his hands at Just James. Just James ignored him, because of course he couldn’t see Gabriel.
“I can see the future,” said Adalia.
“You can what?” said Gabriel.
“Excellent,” said Just James at the same time. “What’s going to happen?”
“Everyone I love is going to go through terrible pain,” she said, “especially Uncle John.”
Gabriel and Just James both blinked at her. Just James went first. “Why — what?”
“It’s why you shouldn’t go out there,” she said.
“But,” said Just James, “why John?”
“Uncle John,” said Adalia, “is the kind of person that … avoids the problem. Usually. He can’t avoid this one. It’s … complicated.”
“He wants to run away?”
“No,” said Adalia. “He’ll run right for it. He can’t help himself.”
“Uh,” said Gabriel. “Oh, I get it. You’re trying to scare him off.”
“No,” said Adalia. “I really can see the future. I mean, bits of it. Like a patchwork, without all the squares sewn in yet.” And it is terrible and beautiful and the end of all that I know. “What am I becoming?”
“Something awesome,” said Just James.
“Something beautiful,” said Gabriel.
“Oh,” said Adalia. She smiled behind her hair. “Someone else said that to me.”
“They were right,” Gabriel said, and she thought he meant something else. He looked down.
“You’re … you’re having one of your moments, aren’t you?” said Just James. “It’s cool. I don’t mind talking to myself for a bit. You know. ‘Hey, James, how about them Hawks?’ Or, maybe, ‘James, what you need to do is grab yourself a nice cold beer.’ If only there was electricity. Or something.”
“He is very noisy,” said Gabriel.
“He is just what I need,” said Adalia.
• • •
When Adalia came out of the bathroom, feeling just about a million times better for having washed her face — just her face, but in clean water from a bottle in Uncle John’s looted stash — the apartment was empty.
Except for Gabriel. Who wasn’t really there. He was sitting on the top of the refrigerator, feet swinging against the front, heels tap-tap-tapping against the front. How can he make noise if he’s not really there? “I couldn’t stop him,” he said.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “You’d have to actually do something.” She was already scrabbling for her jacket, her small bag of things, her useless phone.
“I can’t do anything,” said Gabriel. His eyes were bright, angry. “It’s not my choice. I’m dead, remember?”
“I’m not,” said Adalia, “and I was just in
there.” She pointed at the bathroom. “A closed bathroom door didn’t stop you when we first met.”
“This is different,” said Gabriel.
“Why?” Adalia wanted to scream at him. “You could have come and got me. We could have talked him out of it.”
“You don’t know boys,” said Gabriel.
“I’m starting to,” said Adalia. “I don’t understand the attraction.”
“What would have happened,” said Gabriel, “is that you would have gone with him.”
“No,” said Adalia. But she knew he was right. She didn’t like standing here while the Universe spun around her. She wasn’t the Sacrifice.
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “And I couldn’t … I don’t want that.”
Adalia pulled her jacket on around her shoulders, pushed her phone into her pocket, and stormed towards the door. “Sometimes it’s not about what you want,” she said. “It’s about what we need.” The door slammed behind her, feet stomping down the corridor and towards the stairs.
She didn’t see Gabriel in the apartment, staring around at the empty walls. She didn’t see that he stepped across the space for living people, reaching down to lay a gentle hand against the doorknob she’d just touched. And she didn’t hear him say, “I didn’t want that because, Adalia Kendrick, I love you. With all that’s left of my broken soul. And that is definitely against the rules.”
• • •
Adalia’s feet moved, light as a scampering mouse, across the cold pavement. Abandoned cars sat empty all around her. She didn’t know Chicago and felt small against the towering buildings. She tugged her jacket close against the cold wind and wondered where to go.
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 64
