Seasons of Chaos

by Elle Cosimano

  “Stand back!” Julio’s shout is labored, his voice strained. The wall of water inches closer, creeping toward us.

  “Hurry!”

  The loose stone I’d been working to free wobbles and shakes. With a last kick, Julio knocks it clear, and the rest of the barrier tumbles down around it. Julio and I rush to move the stones away until we can see each other over the top. His eyes narrow on Kai as he digs.

  “You’re a goddamn saint. Or a fucking idiot,” he says through a grunt as he strains to hold the water in check. “I can’t decide.” He hauls the last stone from the pile, opening a space big enough for me to pass through as another rumble builds in the walls. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He shoves me down the tunnel as his dam bursts, and the water chases us toward daylight.

  52

  His Besetting Fears

  DOUG

  There’s something stuck in my eye. Something’s pulling me. Tugging me. An arm around my waist. Lilies in my face. And smoke. A shrill voice, yelling at me.

  “Doug, get up! You have to get up!”

  Gaia. She’s there. Upside down.

  No. I’m upside down. Hanging from my seat belt. Blood spatters the roof of the car. Firelight catches on a broken bottle. The smell of spilled liquor and smoke fills the air.

  Gaia leans in the broken window, reaching for me. She’s beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, her silver hair reflected in the fuel slick on the pavement, her voice like an angel’s. “Come with me now and live forever by my rules. Or die tonight.”

  One eye opens, the other stubborn, refusing. I blink away something viscous and red, swearing quietly when the back of my hand cuts my face. My coat sleeve shimmers.

  Glass. I’m covered in it.

  Orange flames dance through the cracks in the windshield. Black clouds billow from the crushed hood of an unfamiliar car.

  The car I stole . . . The kid’s key ring dangles from the ignition.

  “Come with me now, or we’re both going to die!” Fleur tugs at my seat belt, struggling to unhook it. Blood drips down her temple from a cut on her head, staining the ends of her hair.

  “Damn it, Doug! Get up!”

  My hands are clumsy as I grope for the latch. It’s stuck.

  “There’s a knife . . . in my pocket,” I mutter, hardly able to form a coherent thought. She reaches for the pocket closest to her. “Left. The left pocket.”

  With a muttered swear, she wedges herself between me and the steering wheel. I lift my arm, giving her room, groaning as pain explodes behind my rib. Fleur winces, sucking in a sharp breath as if she feels it, too. She flips open the blade, sawing through the thick fabric of the seat belt. When it finally snaps free, she grabs my arm and hauls me out, both of us screaming as my rib shifts.

  The fire crackles and pops, hissing as it makes contact with the rain. Fleur chokes on the thick smoke as she wraps my arm around her shoulders and guides me through the gate into the park. I feel her inside my head, prodding the edges of my mind for soft spots. Not spying. Checking for damage, I realize. I wonder how much of that memory she saw before I woke up. If she saw everything that happened that night. If she saw my argument with my mom. If she saw my dad walk out or heard what he said. If she saw me polish off that fifth of cheap booze in my car just before the wreck. I shake off her arm and push the memory somewhere deep.

  There’s a deafening explosion behind us. Propelled by a blast of heat, we land facedown in the grass. Fleur pushes up on her hands, twisting to see the car engulfed in flames. Rain streams down her face, soot and blood trailing over her cheeks as she stares across the park at a blue speck in the distance.

  The ground seems to shake. I can’t tell if it’s my tweaked sense of balance or if it’s actually moving. Fleur looks down at her hands where they dig into the grass. Her eyes become glassy and distant. I feel the tug of her magic as it reaches out from her body, spiraling into the ground. My own chases it, painfully slow.

  Our eyes lock.

  Tremors.

  Deep.

  “Come on,” she says, nearly dragging me to my feet. “We have to get back. The north portal is close.”

  Arm thrown over her shoulder, we hobble north. Halfway across the long stretch of green, Fleur pauses, her hand digging painfully into my rib.

  She tips her head toward the heavy rumble of footsteps we both sense vibrating through the ground. I follow her gaze as a swarm of bodies spills into the gate from Park Row. Winters. Dozens. No. Hundreds of them. Fleur whirls, gasping as a wave of Seasons thunders toward the center of the green.

  Springs, Autumns, Summers . . . they crest the rolling hills toward us. They’re all running, exploding from every cardinal direction, converging in the center of the park. Among them, I spot the khaki uniforms of Guards—my Guards—breaking up the Seasons and dividing them into groups as they arrive, directing them in clusters toward the portals on each end of the park.

  “Lixue,” I mutter, “what the hell are you doing?”

  “What’s happening?” Fleur asks, searching the distant faces of the Seasons on the green. “They’re evacuating. Something’s wrong.” She starts toward them, but they’re headed right for us. For the north portal behind us.

  I grab Fleur, turning and tugging her by the hand as the throng surges closer. She nearly trips, craning her neck to see over her shoulder, probably looking for her friends in the mob. I pull her across the street and up the steps to the row house.

  Water streams down my face as I bang on the door. A Guard peers through the sidelight, her eyes widening when she sees us. Muffled voices shout as the locks slide open and the door swings inward. I drag Fleur across the threshold. She runs straight to the parlor window, hands pressed to the glass.

  “Lock the portal down,” I shout back to the Guard. “No one gets inside. Am I understood?” I storm into the parlor and snap the drapes closed. There are too many of them. My head’s splitting. I can’t think.

  “You can’t just leave them out there,” Fleur cries. “They need help. They’re your Seasons. You’re supposed to protect them!”

  “They abandoned the Observatory. They know the rules.”

  “What about that boy? The one you murdered and turned just now? Did you bother explaining the rules to him?” She follows me to the kitchen, close on my heels. “You felt that quake. Those Seasons had no choice but to run!”

  I feel them coming. Feel their feet on the street before they even reach the front porch. They pound on the door, their faces pressed to the sidelights, shouting my name.

  “There’s always a choice.” I take Fleur by the arm and shove her to the cellar door. “No one gets in!” I call over my shoulder, slamming the door behind us.

  I shut my eye, listening to the muted thumps of fists against the portal door, the muffled pleas. Fleur paces at the foot of the stairs, her fear and adrenaline rioting inside me.

  I shrug off my wet coat, biting back a groan of pain as I peel off the sleeves and sit down on the top step. My side throbs, and I tip my head back against the door. This is it. The end of the Observatory. The end of everything. Lyon is probably laughing in his grave. And Michael . . . I hope wherever he is, he isn’t witnessing my failure.

  I bury my bleeding head in my hands.

  “Chronos?” the Guard asks through the door. “There’s someone trying to make radio contact. He says Jack Sommers is asking for you.”

  53

  To Seize the Earth by the Pole

  JACK

  Auggie opens his door just after midnight, drawing his ratty robe closed around his flannel pajamas. The wind roars, sheets of rain lashing our clothes and blowing across his threshold as we stand there, drenched and shivering. I’m pretty sure he’s going to slam his door on all of us, until he sees the body slung over Julio’s shoulder. Kai’s dripping hair is the only part of her that isn’t covered by the blanket we found in the back of the van we stole to get here, but it must be enough. Auggie’s dar
k eyes dart past us to the alley behind his row house, then he ushers us inside.

  The door closes, muffling the howling wind outside. Poppy and Marie exchange skeptical looks once we’re all stuffed in the cluttered parlor. The fly I saw last time I was here buzzes curiously around us. Amber sniffs and wrinkles her nose.

  Auggie pushes the blanket back from Kai’s face. He pulls a penlight from his shirt pocket and pries open one of her eyelids, studying her pupil as he passes the beam in front of the frosty swirls in her iris. “Let me guess,” he says dryly, “you finally got around to telling her about her sister.”

  “You knew?” I ask. He was less than welcoming to me when we met. I thought he, like many, only knew about me because of the rebellion. If he knew about my involvement in Névé’s death, why didn’t he tell Kai then and there?

  His nod is tight. He points to a rumpled sofa against the far wall. Julio drops Kai into it, wrapping the blanket snugly around her, tucking her arms securely against her sides, probably afraid she’ll wake up and come after him with a shiv of ice.

  “Daniel Lyon paid me a visit about a week before you two showed up here. He said Kai might come seeking my help, and she might bring a surprising guest with her.” Auggie blows out a weary sigh, watching her sleep. “Didn’t seem right to keep that kind of secret from her, and I didn’t want any part of whatever Lyon thought was coming. But he said it was critical not to distract her from whatever mission she was on. He said she would discover the truth on her own, at the right time.” He turns to me, frowning at my wet clothes. “There’s a closet upstairs. Get some towels for you and your friends. You’re tracking water everywhere.”

  The others huddle in the parlor as I ascend the rickety wooden steps. Just like the lower floors, the hall upstairs is littered with old junk. Sagging cardboard boxes line the walls, and I’m forced to wedge myself sideways to open the first door I come to. Flipping on a light switch, I gape at the contents of a cluttered bedroom. The room smells old, like the basement of the boys’ home where I lived when I was human. It’s filled with vintage things: A sewing machine with a huge metal pedal. An old Hoover vacuum cleaner with giant wheels and a placard that says 1912. A radio with actual dials. And a turntable for vinyl records I’d bet Amber would kill to get her hands on.

  The floor creaks as I step inside, reaching for a reel-to-reel film projector like the one my mother used to play old home movies on.

  “Don’t touch anything with those wet hands.” Auggie’s voice rises up the stairs. “I spent years rebuilding everything in that room. Every piece of it is worth more to me than you are.”

  I back out of the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind me to search for towels. I find them in a closet farther down the hall and pile them into my arms before descending the stairs.

  “I assume you’re here because you need help cleaning up this mess.” Auggie gestures loosely to a huge console television as I distribute the towels to my friends. The TV is older than I am. Maybe even older than Amber. Auggie adjusts the rabbit ears on top, bringing the images into focus. The muted black-and-white weather report casts gray light over Kai’s face as she sleeps. Her breathing’s shallow, her face ghostly pale.

  “We had nowhere else to go,” I explain. “Doug’s lost control of his magic. The entire place was coming down. We evacuated as many Seasons as we could through the tunnels.”

  “And Doug?” he asks. “Where is the staff?”

  “He got out. I assume he has the staff with him.” And Fleur. But I doubt Auggie cares much about that.

  He lifts his chin, studying me down the length of his hawkish nose as if he’s forming some opinion of me. “And you thought I could help you find him.”

  “No, I . . .”

  Auggie turns for the door to the cellar. I rush after him, remembering all the tools and gear and equipment he has hidden down there. “Wait, can you?”

  “No.” He snaps the chain hanging from the ceiling. A lightbulb flickers on, illuminating the narrow turn in the creaking steps as he descends them. “Too many Seasons running amok. Too many storms. Too many power outages. . . . Finding Doug will be next to impossible unless he wants to be found.”

  I follow him into the cellar. “What if I have something he wants?” The crystal is a warm weight against my side. I draw it from my pocket and hold it between us.

  Auggie’s pupils flash. “Where did you get that?”

  The others tread down the stairs. I ignore their hushed whispers as they take in Auggie’s collection of weapons. Auggie reaches for the eye. I close my fingers around it. This is the only play I have left. “How do I draw him out?” I ask.

  Auggie sucks his teeth, scratching at a patch of stubble on his jaw. He gestures for me to follow him to a shelf in the corner, where he whips a bedsheet off an old VHF radio, throwing up a cloud of dust.

  “Whoa,” I say as Auggie lugs it from the shelf. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was in high school.” And even then, they were old. Auggie sets it on an antique desk, then drags a chair across the room and sits in front of it. “Does it even work?”

  Auggie grunts, his glasses low on the bridge of his nose as he switches on the radio. The fly circles him once before alighting on his shoulder.

  Curious, Amber comes to look, too. “I don’t understand. How’s a radio going to help us get a message to Doug?”

  Auggie’s smile is slight, and maybe a little smug. “The Observatory’s always listening.”

  “The Observatory’s empty,” I say. “The Control Room is probably buried by now.”

  “Only the parts below ground.” Auggie frowns as he tunes the dials. “Tell your friend that blade is sharp.”

  I turn to see Julio messing around with some kind of katana. I draw a finger across my throat and point at the shelf where it came from. He puts it back in its sheath with an exaggerated sigh.

  Auggie switches on the mic. “North Portal . . . North Portal . . . Do you read me?”

  Marie, Chill, and Poppy hover close, listening as Auggie adjusts the knobs. I rub my eyes, fighting frustration and fatigue. The radio is a dinosaur. There’s no way this is going to work.

  A hiss breaks the silence. “This is North Portal. Identify yourself.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. The damn thing actually works. My gaze flicks to the beaded curtain at the entrance to the back room. If Auggie managed to get all that stuff upstairs working, what else is he capable of fixing?

  “This is . . . Black Fly.” Auggie clicks off the mic, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve been listening to the Control Room’s communications over these lines for years. You know, a fly on the wall.” He waves his hand, gesturing at all of us. “Or now, apparently, a fly in their ointment.”

  “This is a private frequency,” the staticky voice says. “You do not have authority to transmit.”

  “To hell with your authority,” he grumbles before switching on the mic. “I have a message for Chronos. Do you copy?”

  I hold my breath through an extended pause.

  “Who is this?”

  “Patch me through to Douglas Lausks.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be poss—”

  “Tell him Jack Sommers wants to speak with him.”

  Auggie gets up from his chair, motioning for me to take his seat. The leather creaks as I ease into it. He turns the mic toward me.

  We hold our collective breath through a series of clicks.

  “I assume you made it out alive.” Doug’s voice is gruff—impatient and hostile. If I close my eyes, I’ll see him walking beside me down the hallway to the Crux, slamming my back into the wall and shoving a flame in my face. With every fiber of my being, I want to kill him. I want to rip Fleur out of his mind and run him through with Lyon’s scythe.

  “Disappointed?” I bite out.

  “Not at all. You and I have unfinished business.”

  My eyes slide back to the beaded curtain. “I’m ready
to settle up. Name the time and place.”

  The length of his pause makes my skin crawl. “The bandstand. Greenwich Park. One hour from now. You come alone.”

  “You come with Fleur.” I tug my damp hair, worried I’ve said too much. I can’t afford for Doug to suspect this is a setup. “I want proof that she’s alive and safe. Then you can do whatever you want with me.”

  Static crackles like frost. “One hour,” he says. “Don’t make me wait.”

  Auggie switches off the radio. “Why didn’t you tell him about the crystal? You could have used it to negotiate for the girl.”

  “I’m not negotiating with anyone.”

  “There’s no way he’ll give her to you.”

  “That’s why I’m going to take her.” I get up from the chair and round the desk, pushing aside the beaded curtain to Auggie’s back room.

  “What are you doing?” Auggie asks.

  I stoop beside the old stasis chamber I saw when I was last here, examining the buttons and dials. The dome of the chamber is real glass. Not plexi. No plastic parts. It’s all brass and bronze and silver. All gears and big glass bulbs with fine curls of steel filament. “What would you need to make this thing work?”

  Auggie’s brow crumples. “Just power. The machine is simple, but it’s—”

  Chill whistles low, examining the dials at the foot of the chamber. “This thing is incredible. I’ve never seen one this old.”

  “Please . . . don’t touch those. They’re very delicate,” Auggie says, hovering over Chill.

  “Is there a transmitter?” I ask.

  “Of a sort,” he says hesitantly. “I mean, all the parts are there, but—”

  “That console TV upstairs, the radio, the old reel-to-reel, and the turntable in the bedroom . . . You got those working, didn’t you?”