“God,” I heard myself say. The word was thick in my throat. “Are these the dead?”
“Don’t stop!” said Lady Betheray urgently. “Don’t look at them, Austin. Don’t give them anything.”
I knew she was right. That was exactly why the hunger of the dead was so horrifying. It went both ways. It was not just that these creatures wanted me, but that I wanted them somehow as well. I would see the shape of a woman—just a dark shape at first. But I was fascinated and I let my eyes linger on her. Soon, the shape began to flush with being and specificity. Features rose into her face, form rose into her figure. And she was beautiful. No, she really was. More than that. She was my dream girl. She looked like a woman I’d imagined. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to do with me exactly what I wanted to be done. I had to force myself to turn away from her, force myself to push on through the firelit shadows. But then … a man this time, just a silhouette, but I looked at him too long, and the black shape began to clothe itself from within with the aspect of a fatherly friend, the kind of mentor I’d never had. I began to wish I could remain in his company …
“Austin!”
Lady Betheray seized my arm and shook me from my trance. The fantasy friend in front of me subsided into a silhouette and slipped away into the darkness.
I blinked. I turned. I met Lady Betheray’s living eyes. How had she had the courage to pass this way so many times? Every time we met to conspire to restore the queen to her throne, she had braved this danger.
“It’s all right,” she said.
She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek with her vital lips, the ermine of her hood brushing my face. The warm touch of her restored my mind to the moment.
I nodded. “Okay.”
She went ahead. I followed.
AFTER A WHILE, the corridor slanted down. The walls ran with clammy water. Soon there were no more dead, but all the same, a new sense of depth and claustrophobia came over me.
“We’re crossing under the moat,” Beth whispered.
I had already guessed as much.
It seemed a long time before the passage began to rise again. Finally though, we came to the end: a faceless slab of stone. Once again, Betheray found the right spot with her fingertips. She pressed it, and the stone shifted. A doorway opened.
Beth took the torch from me and extinguished it in a murky puddle. She set the dead stick against the wall beside two others that were already there.
Then she gestured to me with her head and stepped through the open door. I was right behind her.
We emerged into a small niche hidden by a tapestry. Lady Betheray drew the edge of the arras aside and peeked out. She looked back at me over her shoulder and nodded: the coast was clear. We both stepped through into an empty hallway lit by flaming torches on the walls. It was a bright relief after so long underground. I could still feel the clinging desires of the dead. They were slipping off me reluctantly, like grasping fingers.
We held still, arm pressed to arm. Crouched, poised, listening. I could hear murmuring voices somewhere above us. Footsteps too.
“There are guards everywhere,” she told me.
“Do you think the guy at the city gates might have alerted them?”
“Him? Not him, no. I know him. He’s loyal to the queen. But the archers with him … I couldn’t make out their faces at that distance. I didn’t recognize them, and Winton does have his spies.”
I gazed up and down the empty hallways, listening to those distant murmurs, those footsteps, the sounds of those guards. They could be anywhere, even just around the next corner.
I turned back to Betheray. I slipped my hand beneath her hood, beneath her hair, and touched her face.
“Maybe you should go back,” I said softly.
I looked down at her looking up at me. What a noble creature she was. How full of courage and devotion. Here without a weapon. Without a man’s strength. Oh, I know: in the movies women fight with swords and throw punches that knock grown men across the room. But not in life, not real life, besides the rarest exception. My lady’s arms were slender and smooth. Her punch would have done little damage to a man’s hard jaw. And she could not have wielded a sword in battle for more than a few minutes. I remembered how Aravist had overpowered her without breaking a sweat—how he tossed her light figure around like a doll. I’m sure she remembered it too.
Yet here she was. With nothing to protect her but me. And fearless just the same—in service to her kingdom and her queen—her people and their freedom.
Let Wisdom Reign and Each Man Go His Way.
I was certain of it now: I would die for her if I had to. It was not just a feeling, not just a principle. It was the truth.
“Go back,” I said again. “Go back and wait for me. I’ll do this.”
I saw her consider it. Then she shook her head. “You would never find your way without me, Austin. You need me to get you there.”
“Beth …”
“Ssh. We have to hurry.”
I wanted to kiss her, hold her, even here, even now. I wanted to command her to leave. I wanted to make her go.
But she had already turned and hurried away, her cape flowing out behind her.
She went down the hall to an archway. Two wooden doors were flung wide here, fastened to rings in the wall that held them in place. Beth pressed close against the jambstone, and peeked around it—then pulled back quickly. She held a finger to her lips as I came up beside her.
I set my back against the open door, my shoulder against hers. I heard voices and footsteps around the corner: guards approaching. I held my breath as they drew closer. I saw Lady Betheray shut her eyes, her cheeks pale with suspense.
Then, the guards must have veered off, because the sound of their voices suddenly altered and began to fade. After a few moments, it was quiet again. Lady Betheray took a look then curled around the corner and was gone.
I went after her, through the open doors—and in an instant, I was dazzled by the white brightness of the light—so dazzled by light and mountains and trees and running rivers that for a second I could not comprehend where I was.
Then I did.
I was in the mall. I was in the electronics store with the TVs showing videos of woods and heights and waters. Confused, I turned—and there was Sera, right behind me, right outside the storefront, coming through the shoppers toward the shop’s glass doors.
He was yards away. Closing fast. Lifting his hand from his side. Lifting his pistol.
Pointing his pistol directly at my chest.
A woman screamed out in the mall. In the store itself, a man shouted out a curse. I hurled myself sideways to the floor. There was a gunshot—suppressed—a whispered bang. On the nearest television set, the image of an eagle flying in a clear blue sky suddenly exploded in a shower of glass and fizzling sparks.
I rolled. I saw an aisle of toys—cars and drones and dolls and teddy bears and electric games. I leapt to my feet and sprinted for it. Sprinted down it. Sera charged after me. He planted himself at the head of the aisle to get his shot at my back. I sensed him there more than saw him. As I ran frantically for the end of the aisle, I reached up toward the shelf to my left and grabbed the first thing my fingers touched: an electronic teddy bear in a box. I swept the box into the air behind me, hoping to distract the killer, throw off his aim. I heard the bear say, “Hello, my name is …” But I never found out his name. Sera fired again, and the bear’s voice died in a snowy cloud of stuffing and a hiss of static.
There were more screams. More shouted curses. A bell began to ring, loud as a siren: some kind of alarm. I reached the end of the aisle, came around it—and then, on instinct, pulled to a stop so abruptly I felt the shock in my kneecap, a jarring pain. But I knew Sera was still down at the head of the aisle. If I went to the next aisle over, all he had to do was take a sideways step and open fire. So instead, I stopped, then leapt back the other way, taking the chance he would not have waited for me.
I
guessed right. Sera wasn’t there. He must have gone on to the next aisle to set his trap. But now, I was dashing the other way across the store, aisle after aisle of TV sets, computers, video game consoles, whatever. But where was I going? How could I get out? Sera commanded the front of the store. If I tried to reach the door, he would pick me off as I went past him.
The alarm bell went on ringing, deafening, scattering thought. Maybe the police were on their way. Maybe they’d rescue me. Maybe not. Serge Orosgo wanted both me and Sera gone. Who could tell what his friends in high places would do?
I was out of breath. The scar in my gut was starting to ache and throb. I had that feeling of hollow weakness at the center of me.
I had to get out of here, and fast.
Now I saw the checkout counter to my right. The cash registers, the hanging display of accessories on the wall behind, a little alcove just out of sight. Was there a door in that alcove maybe? Would it be open? Could I go through? If I went in, would there be a way out?
I had no idea. But it was the only chance I had.
I raced to the counter. The alarm bell rang and rang, filling my head with noise. Without breaking stride, I braced both hands on the countertop and with the strength of fear vaulted over it as if I were flying. The scar in my belly sang a high, bright note of pain. I felt the skin stretch. I felt like I might tear open and spill my guts.
Then—midair—I saw the store clerks hiding behind the counter, beneath me. There were two of them back there, a roly-poly young man and a diminutive girl. They were both crouching, cowering, their hands over their heads. I didn’t see them till I was above them and then I couldn’t stop myself.
I managed to land on the floor, on my feet, but the force of motion carried me forward. I went into the tubby guy. The girl screamed. I spun and stumbled, reaching out wildly for something to grab. I grabbed a game controller hanging on the back wall. It held just long enough for me to steady myself, then tore away in my hand so that I kept hurtling forward. Under the hammering sound of the alarm, I heard the girl clerk whimper and sob.
Somehow I managed to whirl between the two crouched bodies. There was the alcove up ahead of me. There was a door in the alcove—yes! I slammed into the wall beside it, the game controller jolted from my hand. I grabbed the knob. Turned it. Pulled the door open. Dashed through.
The clarion bell became muffled as the door slammed behind me. I was in a storeroom, a small space lined with shelves, all the shelves holding more electronics: boxed TVs and computers and toys and wiring accessories. Was there another door? A way out?
There was. I glimpsed it between the shelving.
Behind me, rising into the sound of the bell, blending with the sound of the bell, then rising over it, the girl store clerk shrieked in terror.
A voice rose above every other sound: “Out of my way!”
Sera. He must have seen where I went. He must have leapt the counter too. He must be only steps away from me.
I threaded quickly through the shelves to the exit. The entry door burst open behind me. I turned and there the kitten-faced killer was. His gun barrel scanned the little room, searching for me. He saw me. I grabbed the edge of a shelf and tilted it over. The boxes and gizmos slid off it with a crash. The crash was joined by a gunshot—that muffled blast. I don’t know where the bullet went. The shelf must have blocked it.
I took hold of the knob of the exit door. I had time to fear it might be locked. It wasn’t. I yanked the door toward me. Spun around the edge of it. Charged out.
And I was on a ledge above nothingness: a straight drop down into dirt and death.
I had come out of the mall into the construction site—or the demolition site, I still didn’t know which it was. All I did know was that I was teetering on the edge of a skeleton structure of girders and wood, cement and rebar. Below me—four stories below me—was the dirt pit, the construction machines, rock, earth, a deadly fall, the end of everything. I hung over plummeting destruction for another second with, all around me, the weirdly quiet sound of air in motion and traffic far away.
Then I drew back onto the ledge. There was a narrow platform of wooden planks in front of me: a worker’s walkway. It led to a broader platform of heavy metal plates on which stood a long, low wall of cement bristling with rebar. Putting out my arms for balance, I looked back over my shoulder. Through the door, I could hear Sera cursing—I could hear boxes crashing—as he fought and kicked his way across the little storeroom to the exit.
There was nowhere to go, nowhere I would be out of the range of his fire. But I had to keep moving. If I stood there, he’d be inches away when he came through the door.
And I had an idea. A desperate idea, but it was something.
Like a man on a high wire then, I began to edge out onto the walkway, barely balanced between the fatal fall to my left and the fatal fall to my right, the pit yawning under me. Swaying, unsteady, I took a step forward—then another step—then another—then three more quick steps that took me to the platform of metal plates, the cement with the rebar sticking out of it.
I found my footing. I grabbed a piece of rebar. Something to use as a weapon. I tried to pull it out. It was anchored fast. I could hear the crashing in the storeroom. Sera getting closer and closer to the exit. He’d be through that door with his gun any second.
I tried another piece of rebar, and another. The third one rattled in its hole. It was loose. I pulled on it, hard. Harder. It began to give, to slide up out of the cement. I twisted it and pulled it, grunting with the effort, fighting to keep my grip with sweating hands. I sobbed with frustration as the steel rod resisted, as it slid out only slowly, only bit by bit.
I’m not the one, I was thinking crazily. I’m not the one to pull it free.
And Sera was coming, coming. I looked back and saw the door knob start to turn.
I looked down at the rebar. Focus. Clear the mind. I pulled.
The rebar suddenly came out of the cement. I flew backward almost to the edge of the platform, almost plunging off into eternity. But I kept my feet. Now I had a yard and a half of steel rod in my hands. A weapon, such as it was.
The door to the storeroom swung open. I stepped back onto the wooden walkway, gripping the rebar in one hand like a sword. I started moving toward the door just as Sera stepped out of it.
Sera pulled up, shocked by the drop in front of him. Then he raised his eyes to me. Saw me coming. Grinned voluptuously. With confidence bordering on showmanship, he stepped out grandly onto the walkway. I didn’t slow down. I kept on moving toward him.
“Darling,” Sera said.
He raised his gun. His finger tightened on the trigger.
I whipped the rebar at him. A forehand slash down at his hand, just like I’d learned from the swordfight videos. The bar hit his wrist. The gun fired. The shot went wild. And just like in the videos, I swung the rebar up again, slashing it backhand across his face, opening a wide, raw diagonal gash from his chin to his eyebrow.
That second swing nearly sent me twirling off the walkway. I threw my arms out to my side, teetering there. I tilted back onto the planks and regained my balance.
Not Sera. The brutal blow to his head had sent his eyes rolling, his head rolling. I saw the dazed expression on his face as he swam at the very edge of consciousness. He staggered, gaping.
And he toppled off the walkway.
Standing on the boards, I watched him fall. Fall and fall and fall, it seemed, forever. He went down silently. Not a sound until the very end, and then only the pitiful start of a scream cut short by the brutal thud of his landing. Those sounds—the scream of terrified awareness way too late, the final impact—those sounds rose above the distant whisper of the traffic and reached me even where I stood.
Breathless, I lowered the rebar to my side. I gazed down at the broken body in the dirt below.
THE POLICE WERE WAITING FOR ME WHEN I CAME BACK inside. They had answered the alarm and swarmed the mall. They were just entering
the electronics shop, guns drawn, as I stepped out of the storeroom, the rebar still in my hand.
“Drop it!”
“Put your hands up!” “Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!”
Their shouts were almost drowned out by the deafening bell as it kept on ringing and ringing. It took a second before I could hear them, before I could understand what they were saying. If it had taken even a second more, I do believe they would have opened fire on me. I saw one cop’s gun stiffen in his hand—until a husky, swarthy plainclothesman stepped forward and touched his wrist, gently pushing the pistol downward.
Finally, stunned and exhausted and half-crazy as I was, I got the idea. I dropped the rebar. It fell to the floor with a clang. I raised my hands above my head.
A pale, frightened uniformed patrolman and his dark, frightened uniformed partner trained their weapons on me as the big plainclothesman approached, opened the counter gate, and stepped through. He was tall and broad in the shoulders and round in the gut. He was dressed in a Spartans sweatshirt and torn jeans with his ID card on a chain around his neck and his gun in a holster on his hip. He had a hard-guy face with short sandy hair and a bushy mustache.
He grabbed me and spun me around roughly. He wrenched my arms painfully behind my back and handcuffed me.
Another Kingdom Page 26
