Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood)

by Megan Joel Peterson

  Expressionless, she regarded him, wondering if he actually thought she was gullible enough to believe he suddenly wanted to help.

  “We’ll start in Washington,” she said.

  Pulling Lily with her, she strode past him, trying to ignore the worried look the girl gave Cole as she went.

  “You’re making a mistake,” he called.

  Trembling with rage, she didn’t answer as she yanked open the door.

  Bus and Spider were talking quietly halfway across the room. As Ashe and Lily emerged from the hall, Spider glanced over and then, with a final look to Bus, she turned and disappeared into the shadows.

  With a sigh, the old man waited for them both and then led the way toward the stairs.

  The lower level was silent, and the blue glow of the light did little to alleviate the gloom. Crouching, she braced herself on the platform ledge and then dropped to the tracks. Eyeing the pitch-black shadows that guarded the maintenance room and resisting the impulse to let her defensive magic rise, she helped Lily down and then turned, her skin crawling as she followed Spider and Bus toward the tunnel’s opposite end.

  Minutes passed, their monotony broken only by the infrequent lights revealing layer upon layer of graffiti above the train tracks. Old cigarettes peppered the broken concrete beneath their feet, and years of garbage bordered the wall, filling the air with the stench of decay.

  And finally, a hint of daylight thinned the shadows as the tunnel began to climb.

  On some unspoken signal, Spider and Bus slowed. Reaching into his pocket, the old man drew out a set of keys and then handed them to the girl.

  “Third one on the left, yeah?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Spider hesitated, and then echoed the motion. Briefly, her gaze went back to the shadowy tunnel, hurt flickering through her eyes.

  “Take care of him for me,” she said quietly.

  Bus smiled. “You know I will.”

  Spider drew a breath, forcing her expression to clear, and she nodded again. Adjusting the bag on her shoulder, she gave him a small grin and then started up the slope.

  The old man glanced over as Ashe followed. “Now don’t you go keeping all the fun to yourself,” he ordered. “You need anything…”

  Ashe hesitated. “Thanks, Bus.”

  He chuckled, patting her shoulder. “See you when you get back, kiddo.”

  She nodded, hoping it would be true. Hanging onto Lily’s hand, she continued after Spider.

  “Bye, Bus,” Lily said shyly as they passed.

  The rushing sounds of traffic filtered down the tunnel as they climbed, and after a dozen yards, the tracks abruptly came to an end. An overgrown gate lay ahead, its base entrenched by mounds of garbage and dead leaves. Twitching the kudzu aside, Spider scanned the street, and then flipped around the keys to unfasten a heavy padlock and chain lashed around the gate. Sliding the chain through the bars, she checked the street again and then pulled one side of the fence back slightly.

  “Hurry,” she said and then slipped through the opening.

  A thick carpet of kudzu choked the ditch beyond the tunnel, ending only inches from the sidewalk. Beat-up cars sagged next to old parking meters, waiting for their owners to return, while across the street, abandoned office buildings gaped. Barely giving Cole enough time to make it past the gate, Spider refastened the chain, and then tucked it into the vines before striding swiftly for the sidewalk. At an old bronze car three parking meters from the entrance to the tunnel, she unlocked the door and then reached around to pull the rear lock as well.

  Ashe climbed into the back seat, her nose wrinkling at the musty smell of the overwhelmingly beige interior. Scooting to the far side of the vehicle, she unlocked the front and then bent over to help Lily tug the door closed with a screech of rusted hinges. As Lily eyed the dusty seatbelt, surrendering finally to buckling it over herself, Ashe turned, watching the street.

  Police cars shot past an intersection a few blocks away, their sirens howling.

  She swallowed and glanced to the front as Spider turned the key in the ignition, succeeding in starting the engine on the fourth try.

  “Blackjack’s got to get better cars,” the girl muttered. Pulling down the gearshift, she winced as the car jerked, and then eased the vehicle out onto the potholed road.

  “Well,” Spider said dryly. “Here we go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A block from the latest target, Harris pulled the rental car to a stop and sighed. Forty-eight hours had passed since the kids escaped the Blood in Banston, and in his opinion, the time had not gone well. Half of Jamison’s forces were tearing the city apart, while the rest were chasing any lead they could find. A few stragglers like himself were still being sent to other cities to take down any additional Merlin hiding places Tanya recalled, in case they were locations to which Ashley would retreat, and over Chaunessy, there hung a cloud of silence no one wanted to be the first to break.

  Brogan looked like cold violence waiting to happen. Simeon hadn’t bothered and lashed out at anyone who crossed his path. Tanya was like a woman possessed, wracking her already questionably stable mind for any hideouts she might have forgotten, and Jamison hadn’t left his office in two days.

  And meanwhile, Harris couldn’t get Cole’s words out of his head.

  With a scowl, he shoved the gearshift into park and then turned off the engine. Glancing to the passenger seat, he eyed the paper sack of groceries dubiously, and then hefted it up and shifted it around till he could climb from the sedan without contorting himself into too much of a pretzel. The wide street was mostly quiet, with only a few midday drivers cruising the roads, but even the silence set him on edge. Hoisting the bag higher in his arms, he surveyed the neighborhood as casually as he could manage, and then headed for the cube of cracked stucco walls and cheap metal windows optimistically called the Beautiful Acres Apartments.

  It was hard not to be tense. The Merlin had gotten craftier in recent weeks, once they’d figured out their hiding places were compromised. Apartments were booby-trapped as often as not, and in the past two days alone, every place he’d gone had proven to be a setup.

  No one had gotten killed. Not yet, anyway. But the possibility of another trap left him edgy every time he walked into a building where Tanya said the Merlin had been.

  With as pleasantly neutral an expression as he could muster, he pulled open the glass door and then strolled into the narrow hallway. Cracked tile popped beneath his feet, destroying any chance he had of approaching the apartments unnoticed, and through an open doorway, he spotted a young couple kissing goodbye before the man headed out.

  He nodded to the guy as he passed and kept walking. It was a bit like the old days on the police force, running stealth reconnaissance like this. He got in, surveyed the area and then got out with the exact location of the targets in question. A squad would move in and subdue the threat, while he slipped off with none of the targets aware that the assumedly oblivious man who’d wandered by a few minutes before had actually given their position away.

  Of course, it wasn’t exactly the same. Back on the force, he’d known pretty much where everyone stood on things.

  Fighting off a grimace, he pushed the thought aside and doubled back toward the stairway. He didn’t know what had spooked Cole, but it wasn’t something he could worry about right now. Everything else aside, the Merlin had proven time and again to be a clear, violent threat with an utter lack of concern for whom they hurt. That was reality, and he needed to focus on it if he wanted to keep the wizards from knowing he could see them, and if he wanted to make it back to the car alive.

  But for the addition of an old woman sweeping her doorstep, the second story was identical to the one below. Narrow brown doors bearing tarnished brass numbers lined either side of the corridor, ending in a permanently sealed window that overlooked the parking lot. The door shut behind him as the old woman returned to her apartment and at the end of the hall, he could hear
a television playing cartoons.

  Confusion hit him, followed by a rush of recognition for the eye-crossing feeling he’d come to know so well. He forced his feet to keep moving. There were four doors on each side of the hallway, but to his right, his gaze was hell-bent on sliding past one.

  Breathing slowly, he strolled past the magic to the last apartment and knocked.

  The noise of the television clicked abruptly off. A few child-like voices protested, only to fall silent at a sharp reprimand, and then the door crept open.

  “Yes?” a weathered-looking young woman asked, eyeing him from behind the security chain.

  Harris smiled. “Hi, I’m from North Falls Presbyterian,” he said, pulling from memory the name of a church he’d passed on the way here. “One of our members put down your family for a gift from our food pantry and I’m just coming by to drop it off.”

  The woman hesitated. “Who gave you our name?”

  His smile took on a rueful cast. “I’m not really allowed to say.”

  “Are there cookies?” came a little boy’s voice from inside the apartment.

  “Stay in there!” the woman snapped without looking fully away from Harris. For a moment longer, she paused, and then she twitched her chin toward the floor. “Okay, just leave it by the door.”

  He didn’t let the smile flicker as he set the bag down. “Have a nice day,” he said as he straightened again.

  “You too,” she offered cautiously as he walked off.

  No sound emanated from the other apartment as he passed it on his way back to the stairs. His eyes slipped over it, his expression blankly pleasant, and his heart picked up speed as he spotted shadows moving behind the peephole.

  He kept going. The clatter of his footsteps on the stairs felt deafening and, by the time he finished sweeping the third floor, his heart was drumming fit to choke him. Jogging back down the steps, he headed out onto the street, fighting the urge to look back at the second story all the while. Continuing across the road, he thumbed the key fob for the rental and then slid into the driver’s seat before finally allowing himself to survey the building.

  Nothing moved. He pulled out his cell phone.

  “Second floor, north side, halfway down the hall in apartment six,” he said when Brogan picked up. “But we have a problem. There’s people all around them. Kids too.”

  The wizard paused. “Understood. Head for the airport. We’ll be there shortly.”

  Silence replaced the faint hiss of the phone call.

  Harris set the cell aside. His gaze returned to the building as he started the car.

  The fact he’d made it back meant that, like every place before it, Ashley probably wasn’t in there, though other equally vicious wizards could be. But Brogan and the rest knew what they were dealing with when it came to the Merlin, if only by the number of people they’d lost fighting them. Meanwhile, however, he was sitting here when he needed to drive, because if any of the Merlin survived, spotted him elsewhere, and then remembered he’d been gawking at their window right before the Blood showed up, he’d really be screwed.

  He grimaced and pulled the car away from the curb.

  Why would Cole think his dad didn’t want to help a kid?

  He flipped on the radio in exasperation. Jamison made clear when they first met that the little girl’s safety was as important as Cole’s own. At the police station, Brogan had indicated much the same thing.

  And people never lied.

  He came to a stop at a red light and rubbed his face, a familiar ache beginning to throb in his temples. The Blood wanted to stop Ashley and everyone like her. They’d taken apart the ones who’d occupied Chaunessy before them solely to keep those wizards from ever hurting anyone again, and they were damn close to doing the same to Ashley’s people. And beyond that, he really didn’t care. Someone had to protect the innocent from her kind, and since no one in the so-called human world even believed wizards existed, the Blood were the best chance anyone had.

  So why the hell hadn’t Cole seen it that way?

  A horn honked and he flinched, realizing the light had long since turned green. Exhaling in frustration, he waved apologetically as he glanced to the rearview mirror.

  He froze. Above the apartment building, black smoke billowed into the sky.

  A curse escaped him. Hitting the accelerator, he cranked the wheel around, spinning the car through a tight turn and leaving the drivers of the other vehicles staring. His hand reached for a siren before he remembered it wasn’t there and then the next stoplight was behind him, with traffic screeching to a halt in his wake. A turn came and went as he raced the car onto the apartment building’s street, and when he hit the brakes, the rental careened onto the curb before reaching a stop.

  The second floor was in flames.

  He jumped from the vehicle and took off.

  Residents flooded out the door and others stood in the street, their eyes locked on the flames licking up the stucco walls. Sirens wailed in the distance and the wizards were nowhere to be seen. Skidding to a halt, he skimmed his gaze over the crowd.

  The old woman and the couple were there. Dozens of other people too.

  But not everyone.

  He looked to the second floor.

  A small hand pounded on the window of the endmost apartment.

  He ran.

  People stumbled from his path as he shoved through the doorway and rescued belongings went flying as he barreled between the crowd on the stairs. Protests followed him past the second story door, the noise dismissed as irrelevant the moment it reached his ears.

  Smoke poured across the ceiling. Flames were devouring the walls.

  Harris wrapped an arm across his mouth and nose, and ran for the end of the hall.

  The heat was incredible. Everything on his body felt like it was cooking, and he could hardly breathe for the smoke. Amid the flames chewing through the cheap plasterboard, crazed scorch marks covered the walls, and charred drywall and insulation rained from holes blown in the ceiling.

  He slowed, placing a hand to the door of the last apartment before grabbing the handle and hurrying inside.

  Two wide-eyed faces stared up from beneath the layer of smoke, both of them crouched around a figure lying just inside the doorway.

  He cursed, recognizing the young woman from a few minutes before. A gash covered her forehead, the ragged edges swelled tight, and blood laced her face till it was lost in her hair.

  A shiver shook him despite the heat. She’d gone to get the groceries he’d left for her.

  And then she’d gotten in the way.

  Drawing a rough breath, he bent and scooped her up from the ground.

  “Come on,” he ordered the kids. “Stay low and–”

  “What the hell?” came a muffled voice.

  He looked up to see two firemen in the doorway, their equipment covering them from head to toe. Without waiting for an answer, the nearest strode forward, taking the woman from Harris’ arms and jerking his head back toward the hall.

  “This way,” the man barked from within his helmet, while his partner rounded up the children and led them from the room.

  Harris didn’t argue.

  Coughing hard, he rushed after them through the burning hallway. Apartment doors had been kicked open, and living rooms filled with smoke and abandoned belongings gaped back. The floor groaned beneath him, the sound almost drowned by the growl of the flames, and beyond the walls he could barely hear the sirens screaming.

  Prone figures caught his eye and he slammed to a stop. His confused gaze went from the firemen to the apartment, and then his mind caught up with where he was standing.

  The door had been blasted inward. He could see that from the chunks of wood flung all over the place. And the Blood had gone in fighting, given the fact the bodies hadn’t made it much beyond the living room. From the way the corpses lay, they looked like they’d tried to flee, and based upon the destruction in the hall and the residual blur of magic
in the apartment, a few others had probably survived, though he couldn’t say if they’d ultimately managed to escape.

  But that wasn’t the point.

  He was shaking. He couldn’t stop shaking.

  Five bodies. Burned. Blackened. Charred beyond recognition by the assault they’d taken.

  And three of them were painfully small.

  The floor cracked warningly beneath his feet, jarring him as it started to give way, and he gasped, taking in a lungful of smoke before he realized what he was doing. Choking, he stumbled from the apartment, his legs carrying him to the stairwell door. A firefighter grabbed him, muscling him down the stairs and out onto the street, and when an oxygen mask appeared in front of his face, it was all he could do to breathe.

  Children.

  They’d killed children.

  Hands grabbed him as he tried to rise, holding him on the ambulance step.

  The Blood had killed children.

  “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

  He blinked at the woman as she put a hand to his head and then flashed a light across his eyes.

  Children.

  “Sir, are you hurt?”

  His gaze slid to the apartment building, watching the fire hoses rain torrents of water down on the blaze.

  “Sir?”

  He shook his head slowly and didn’t notice when she finally went away.

  Emergency crews swirled around him while smoke billowed into the midday sky.

  He pulled the mask from his face. Leaving it on the ambulance step, he walked back to the rental car. The door opened and let him into the driver’s seat, and then closed again.

  His gaze fell to his jacket and the space where it hid his gun.

  He couldn’t shoot them. He knew how that scenario ran. And arresting them was as much a joke now as it’d been with Ashley.

  They’d murdered kids.

  His eyes closed and his brow furrowed as his head began to pound.

  The kids he’d led them to. The kids they must have seen when they’d come into the room and whom they could have avoided hitting if they’d really wanted. They hadn’t needed to kill them. The adults weren’t even anywhere close; not based on where the bodies lay. The Blood could have taken the children with them or, at a minimum, left them after everything else was done.