“What is it, Fudge?” she asked, just as softly as he had growled.
His ears were up and he was scanning the front of the building just as she was, his sharply pointed nose wrinkling.
Charlee waited, watching him. Her bow and quiver were leaning against one of the pillars, half a step away, so she took the step and reached out her hand for the bow, keeping her gaze on Fudge. He would tell her where the danger came from, as long as she watched him.
Fudge stood up, and turned in a circle, almost like he was chasing his tail. Then he stood quivering at the top of the step. He gave a little whine and his tail wagged furiously.
He was looking down at her.
“Fudge?” she asked. He wouldn’t leave his post without her permission, but it was clear that if he hadn’t been on duty, he would have dived down the steps to where she was.
There was a clink of stone, behind her. Farther along the passage. Charlee snatched up her bow and notched an arrow. She drew the bow, watching where the opening of the passage drilled through the compacted earth that had been behind the cellar walls before they had collapsed. The rubble around the passage mouth had been left in place and weeds hung over the top of it. It wasn’t hidden, but it did look abandoned and disused.
The clink sounded again. There was a lot of debris still scattered along the maw of the passage and a good way inside it, from when the wall had collapsed. Charlee drew the bow tighter, holding it steady at just under the full pull she would need to release the arrow cleanly.
“It’s me, Charlee.” The voice issued from the passage, soft and wary. “Put down the bow.”
“Asher!” She dropped the bow and picked up the hem of her skirt and skipped over the rows and mounds and the scattered rubble that framed it, heading for the passage at a speed that wouldn’t turn her ankle. “You’re a day early!”
He ducked under the weeds and stepped out of the passage, then leaped down to the turned earth, landing just in front of her. The long tails of the overcoat he wore flapped around his ankles. She threw herself into his arms and heard him gasp, even as his arms came around her. He chuckled, pulling her up off her feet, then kissed her thoroughly.
Charlee clung to him, reacquainting herself with his size, his warmth, his scent. “Gods, I missed you!” she murmured against his lips. “A whole week!”
“A lifetime,” Asher agreed.
She wriggled out of his arms and patted his hip, where one of the handguns he always carried was clipped to his belt. “Ouch,” she told him.
“It’s been a week. I’ve got used to not having women throw themselves against me.” As he spoke, he unclipped the gun and thrust it into one of the spacious pockets of the coat. The coat wasn’t a heavy one, not at this time of year, but it hid weapons and the hood would hide Asher’s face if he needed the camouflage. Being the most wanted people in occupied New York brought challenges that sharply dictated the shape of their day-to-day lives.
Charlee helped him remove the coat, then threw her arms around him again and kissed him. Her enthusiasm wasn’t just because she had missed him. Whenever he returned from one of his journeys, a deep relief that she refused to voice aloud would drive her to get as close to him as possible, to inhale his presence and revel that he was here once more, in her life. That he had survived.
Asher didn’t lift her up on her feet this time. He was kissing her with a heated impatience that always colored his kisses when he returned. He was grateful to have returned safely, too, and that also remained unspoken.
His impatience blossomed into heated wanting. Charlee’s fingers scrabbled at his shirt, impatiently tugging at the buttons. His hands were in her hair, running along the backs of her thighs, cupping her bottom.
Asher lowered her into the soft dirt that smelled of green growing things, that reminded her of life itself, and spread himself over her.
* * * * *
Asher stroked her back, but there was no serious intent behind it. He was doodling, a physical man’s form of idling. The sun had moved away from the noon brightness, and shadows were creeping across the cellar. It was growing cold, but Charlee didn’t want to move just yet.
She lifted her head off his chest and looked at him directly. “How did it go?” she asked. “Did you have to go very far?”
“Almost to the shield,” he said and flexed, stretching himself, and lifting her at the same time. “But let’s talk about that at home. I see you’ve been decorating while I was gone.” He shifted his head to look at the section of basement wall that remained. There was twenty feet of it, where concrete daub still clung to the bricks that had made up what must have been the original part of the building. The brick foundations had withstood the Alfar’s pulse cannons better than the newer poured concrete walls.
Along the only intact section of concrete rendering was a series of rows and columns, painted with a liter of white satin gloss that Charlee had found in the back of a closet in the wreckage of an apartment building she had been scouting for supplies.
Charlee couldn’t meet Asher’s gaze.
“Just a moment.” Asher sat up, bringing her with him, his hands holding her steady. It was one of those impossible-to-imitate movements he made that took pure muscle and strength she did not possess. He held her against him as he examined the wall, and her new decoration, then held her away from him so he could look at her. “It’s a picket fence.”
She shrugged and pushed herself all the way up onto her feet, using his shoulders for leverage, and reached for her overdress. It had been too risky to undress completely, but that made the coming night something to look forward to.
“Charlee, are you blushing?” Asher asked softly.
She held out her hand. “Come on. I’m hungry and if I’m hungry, you must be starving. I have soup ready at home, and bannock.”
Asher laughed and stood up, fastening his clothing. “You really do know how to seduce a man.”
“If you’re very nice, I have some honey for the bannock, too.”
Asher groaned. “I surrender!” He clutched his stomach.
“Idiot,” she told him, grinning.
“If I am, it’s because of you.” He kissed her, then picked up her bow and put it in her hand. She lifted up his coat for him and called Fudge to her with a short whistle.
Fudge bounded down the stairs and took the four-foot drop at the bottom where the stairs had crumbled away with a flying leap. His tail was wagging, but he didn’t make a sound, for he was still technically on duty and would be until they reached home.
Charlee picked up her quiver and pointed to the passage. Fudge trotted over to the gaping maw, climbing the rock-fall with sure-footed ease. At the top of the pile, he looked back. His tongue was hanging out of the side of his mouth, pink against the deep, dark brown of his fur. It made him look cheerful.
Charlee waved him on, and Asher clipped the gun to his belt and picked up her hand. “Let’s go home.”
As she stepped into the passage, Charlee looked back over her shoulder to check that nothing was out of place, that there would be nothing to alert someone who glanced down into what was left of the building that there were green, edible things growing down here. Her tools were all put away, and the plants she tended were scattered carefully among grass and weeds, looking like weeds themselves, most of them.
She looked up at the tower overhead, which was more visible from this angle than anywhere else in the cellar. There were dozens of arrowheads out today, flitting around the tower in almost ostentatious display. She wondered if someone important among the Alfar was in the tower. That would explain the sudden scurry of patrols.
“Patrols are out,” she observed as she climbed carefully over the rubble to where the passage was clear.
“I noticed. I would have been here two hours ago, if not for the arrowheads.”
“Do you think they’re planning to do a roundup?” The last roundup had been over a year ago, and the Alfar had paid heavily for the few slaves they had c
aptured. These days they contented themselves with the few humans they gathered when they dared set foot on the ground. They would only touch down and walk the streets when they had heavy armor and outrageous numbers. Three arrowheads of Blakar at least. With such numbers, human resistance wisely melted away and hid.
“I didn’t hear anything about a planned roundup,” Asher said, “but I’ve been traveling for two days. We can watch them, see if they look like they’re forming a phalanx, and send word if they do descend.”
They were drawing close to the end of the passage. Daylight showed ahead. Asher dropped her hand and pulled out his sword and gun. He left the sword furled. There was no chance the sword would fail to obey his command, for the aura that generated the shield wall around the tower was so powerful, it bled off power that ran to any auras nearby, feeding them. It was one of the very few advantages of living inside an Alfar shield.
Asher inched his way to the jagged crater overhead and looked up. Then he put the sword away and beckoned her closer.
Charlee hurried past him and clicked her fingers to call Fudge over to her. Then she picked him up and tucked him under her arm. Fudge gave a single soft whimper, for he did not enjoy this part of the route at all. Torger was far more stoic about being lifted and carted about.
Charlee grabbed the bent and twisted rebar that emerged from the earth around the edge of the crater using her free hand. The rebar made useful hand and foot holds, once Asher had beaten a few of them into more convenient angles. From long practice, she climbed until her head was at the top of the rubble that surrounded the hole and looked around. The dank alley was deserted.
Moving quickly, she climbed out of the hole and stepped over the rubble to the street itself, avoiding the carcasses of dead rabbits and cats, birds and more. Their entrails had been tossed aside, their bellies disemboweled and the meat gnawed off their bones. The poor creatures had not died in this alley but were the victims of the numerous dogs in the city that had turned feral and hunted in packs. Asher and Charlee had carefully draped the carcasses and the entrails to make the pit look like a dog-pack lair. If the smell of rotting meat did not deter the curious, the idea of facing feral and possibly rabid and very hungry dogs did.
It was also why Fudge didn’t like the hole. His sense of smell was so much stronger. As she reached the top he began to kick and wriggle under her arm, so she stopped, and lifted him up to the lip of the hole where he scrabbled with his forepaws until he could get a grip, then pushed off from her shoulder with his rear paws, and scrambled out of the hole.
Asher followed Charlee out of the hole, moving as quickly as she had. He kept the gun in his hand, but let his hand hang by his side. “It’s not as offensive as it was. We should find another animal.” He spoke softly. It wasn’t a whisper, which would carry, but a low murmur.
“I saw a dead falcon in the park a few days ago,” Charlee said just as quietly. “I’ll bring it over tomorrow.”
They walked down the alley. On the wall where the sun fell were the two Norse runes that had popped up all over the city in the last few years, spray-painted with more enthusiasm and relentlessness than any graffiti artist of the past had shown.
The first, Asher had explained, was a Valknut. The three intertwined triangles were a symbol for death. The pentacle next to it wasn’t just a human symbol for witchcraft, but a powerful protector against elves. The Alfar.
Death to the Alfar and victory for humans. It was a simple idea that had spread like a virus across the city. On the one occasion that Asher had agreed to take her on an expedition to the shield wall, to study the land beyond for messages or people, Charlee had seen the two symbols everywhere; they were painted on walls facing the outside of the shield, covering almost every inch of it—it was a declaration of resistance to anyone who saw them, including the world beyond the shield.
They pattered down the alley past the runes and on toward the street, their footsteps almost silent. Fudge was like a shadow, hugging the walls as he trotted ahead of both of them.
Asher had refined Charlee’s guerilla skills over the years. She could move as silently as he did, now. She fell into step behind him and they both remained silent. Use your ears and your nose and your intuition, Asher often said. They’ll warn you well ahead of when your sight will serve.
So it was the sound of a misstep on loose and dried out shingles, overhead, that alerted her. Instead of looking up, she slapped Asher’s shoulder and spun to flatten herself against the side of the building itself. Whoever was on the roof would have to lean well over the edge to spot them there, and that would give them a fat target to shoot at.
Fudge turned to look at Asher, for instructions. Asher waved him down and he sat, his head cocked, listening.
Charlee notched an arrow and lifted the bow to aim upwards, waiting for the target to show itself.
Asher already had his gun aimed at the gutter, but he wouldn’t shoot unless he had to. The gun would draw attention to them. He would leave it to her, instead.
They waited. Waiting was another skill Asher had imparted, and it had been one of the hardest to learn. Waiting for five, ten or even thirty minutes for the enemy to take the next step because they were more impatient was a way of exposing them.
So they kept their backs against the wall, their weapons aimed generally at the roof, and waited. It was pleasant with the sun bathing their faces, but Charlee steeled her mind against the pleasure. She stayed focused, scanning the roofline, but listening all around her, for the enemy could move as easily and swiftly as they could.
Almost eight minutes later, there was a scrape of a window against a frame, a sharp squealing sound of neglected, rain-swollen wood on wood that made them both spin to face to the south. Charlee was in front of Asher, which was perfect positioning. She aimed the bow along the street.
After a few seconds a hand emerged from the window. There was a pistol hanging from the very tips of the finger and thumb, swinging freely by the trigger guard. Then a head emerged.
It was Lucas. He put his fingers to his lips, then disappeared again. A few seconds later his dusty and worn boots pushed through the window and he slid out and onto the pavement with a little hop to keep his balance. His smile was huge.
Charlee lowered her bow, relief trickling through her. She glanced at Asher over her shoulder and he rolled his eyes and started forward down the pavement, heading for Lucas where he stood dusting himself off with one hand.
The other hand was tucked into the opening of his denim shirt and held stiffly at his side. Concern touched Charlee and she hurried after Asher. “What have you done to yourself?” she murmured when she reached Lucas.
Lucas and Asher hugged, banging each other on the back, then Lucas stepped back, wincing. “One of those long knives the Myrakar use. It’s just a scratch.”
“You need it looked at?”
“Why I’m here.” They kept their talk short and to the point. There was no need to draw attention to themselves, and on empty streets sound could travel an astonishing distance.
Asher tilted his head wisely. “Not for the food?”
Lucas grinned. “That, too.”
Chapter Forty-Two
They continued to move swiftly through the streets at a speed that let them maintain silence and caution, all of them strung out in a line with distance between them. Asher set the pace. They had to travel three blocks to reach the subway and most of that travel was in view of the tower rising above them, so Asher always chose the north or western side of the streets, and they flitted across exposed intersections only after checking for arrowheads or foot patrols.
There were no other humans on the streets, not this close to the belly of the tower, although as they passed windows and doors, Charlee sometimes caught a whisper of sound—people watching them go by until they were safely beyond their shelter, most likely. People did live here because weatherproof shelter was hard to come by, but they only moved outside under cover of night.
&n
bsp; They hurried down the steps into the subway entrance, maintaining silence until they were at the first level. At the bottom of the steps, as Fudge trotted down into the dark on the next level, Asher lifted the hood of his coat up and slid it over his head until his face was in shadows. Charlee was less well known than Asher was. There had been no images of her in the media before the occupation, while Asher had been in the news almost daily, his name and his image spread around the globe on TV and the Internet.
The rendering of Charlee’s face above the offer of freedom for whoever led the Alfar to her had been odd and looked quite unlike her, as if the artist had been looking through a warping lens. Asher had nailed it: “A Myrakar drew this, and they see human faces through the same perspective you would look at, say, fish faces. You interpret according to what you have been looking at all your life.”
“This is how the Alfar see me?”
“It would be close. We’re lucky they didn’t think to make it a color picture. Your red hair would make you instantly recognizable, even with this distortion.”
So Charlee could move more freely around the city than Asher could, even though the Alfar were offering to escort the informant to the other side of the shield as a reward for the capture of either of them. Even though Asher’s likeness was just as distorted as hers, everyone knew his name and knew the real face that went with the name.
Here on the first level, humans were to be found, which had been why Asher had raised his hood. They sat against the walls of the level, watching the three of them with curious eyes. But curiosity was as far as it went. The sort of crimes that had once plagued New York had almost completely disappeared. Humans did not steal from humans or the odd Kine still surviving in the city. Everyone helped everyone else as much as they could, paying it forward in a barter system that used goodwill as valuta, more often than not.
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 64
