by K.M. Weiland
Chapter Fifteen
Chris watched the Searcher lay her heels to her mount’s sides and canter away to join Quinnon up ahead. She wasn’t exactly what he had expected either. She didn’t want to shoot him like he’d originally thought, and her idea of duty wasn’t going to let her stand by while someone else shot him. But she probably wouldn’t mind too much if he got knocked off accidentally while her back was turned.
Eroll rode over. “You’ve had quite a first day. Most Gifted get speeches and parades.” He grinned and offered Chris a hand up. “Don’t take her too much to heart. She’s strung a bit tight over all this. You’re her second Gifted, you know.”
Chris swung onto the horse’s rump. “So I’ve gathered.”
“This is something of a phenomenon, really. Two Gifted in one Searcher’s lifetime. That hasn’t happened in five hundred years. There’s more than a few of our people who think it’s . . . well, to put it lightly, unnatural.”
In the darkness ahead, Allara’s mounted shadow danced.
“Maybe it is unnatural,” Chris said. “Considering how things turned out.”
“Not a’tall. Things happen for a reason. And anyway, it doesn’t take much imagination to realize how beastly bewildering it would be to wake up one morning and find yourself in a world you hadn’t even known was there. Honestly, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing you did.”
“You don’t even know why I did it.”
Eroll shrugged. “Don’t suppose it matters really. It’s done now.”
They plodded on in silence for a few minutes, before Eroll spoke again, with a hesitating intake of breath before the words. “You’ll forgive her, won’t you? The Searchers are sent to guide the Gifted, to support them and protect them, while they’re figuring things out. But Alla . . . really, she’s the one who needs protecting. She’s still shattered from the last Gifted, and she’ll crack clean in two if she gets hit hard one more time. Do what she asks you to, eh?”
Chris didn’t trust her anymore than she trusted him, but he’d seen her mask slip. He’d seen the raw vulnerability beneath her anger and her confidence. He could relate to that more than he wanted to think about. “I’ll try.”
For now though, staying awake in the saddle was challenging enough. He blinked hard. His thoughts swirled aimlessly, his physical exhaustion dragging at his mind. He’d been on his feet since early this morning, run ragged by one impossible happening after another. By the time they reached the outskirts of a town, midnight was probably a few hours past.
Two- and three-story houses loomed, their whitewashed fronts brought into stark relief by dark reinforcing planks. Some were apparently homes, others businesses—a blacksmith’s, a post office, a ladies’ clothing shop. Large globes of colored glass strung the eaves and lit the cobblestone streets. Only a few horsemen trotted past, headed the opposite direction. Several men in black knee-length coats and wide-brimmed hats walked up and down, iron-tipped canes tucked under their arms.
“Night policemen,” Eroll explained.
The shadows at the base of the buildings moved to reveal hunched figures in rags—the destitute and criminal element that combed every town, from the bottom up, at night.
“Where are we?” Chris asked.
“Thyra Junction. It’s the biggest town between Glen Arden and Réon Couteau and the only skycar station for a day’s ride in any direction. My town, actually. Duke of Thyra and all.”
The road led them into a circular piazza. In the center sat a long building with half a dozen ticket windows. White ramps led to the booths, each marked by a sign inked in square-edged symbols.
A shadow overhead blacked out the lights for a moment, and Chris ducked. A web of cables crisscrossed the sky, and chains of glass cable cars glittered.
“That’s your ride out of here,” Eroll said. “Have to tell you, I’m rather proud of my skycar station. Best in the northern counties. I’d ask you to pardon the bragging, but you can hardly call it that when it’s the holy truth, now can you?”
Quinnon circumnavigated the ramps altogether and led them around the corner of the station to where two men in blue uniforms stood guard at a towering iron gate.
“Very sorry, sir,” one said, “but ticket counters don’t open until morning. You’ll have to come around again then.”
“I’m Captain Quinnon.” He dismounted. “The Princess Allara has urgent business in Réon Couteau, so be good lads and hitch up the royal train. We’ll only be needing one car this time around.”
The guards peered at Allara. Their halberds snapped straight at their sides and they touched their closed eyes with thumb and forefinger and slid their hands down their faces.
She tipped her chin in response, and they hurried to swing open the double gates.
Inside the cobblestoned courtyard, a man with a close-trimmed gray goatee stumbled out to greet them. He pulled his tabard over his head and replaced his hat as he came.
“Your highness, I’d no idea you’d return tonight. I’ll have your train put on the tracks immediately.” His gaze wandered back to Eroll’s horse and stopped on Chris. A shade of something—confusion, then realization, then shock—passed across his face.
“Thank you, Conductor.” Her voice sounded as tight as her shoulders. “We’ve had a long ride, so if you wouldn’t mind hurrying?”
He dragged his attention back to her, twitched his head in a nod, and scampered off.
Chris took the opportunity to unlock his joints and swing his leg over the horse’s back. His feet hit the ground and thudded pain all the way up his body to his teeth. The throbbing in his shoulder tightened his throat and flickered black spots across his vision. The bleeding had stopped after Quinnon had jabbed the wound full of that burning stuff, but the pain had only seemed to worsen.
Allara dismounted and handed her reins to Quinnon, who led both horses after the conductor. She walked over to stand at Eroll’s stirrup and stared up at him without a glance at Chris. “You’re going after Mactalde then?”
“Soon as I get a few winks behind my eyes and gather up the faithful troops.”
In the moonlight, her throat glinted white. “I wish you didn’t have to. Who knows what trouble you’ll run into at the border.” She still didn’t look at Chris. Sheer force of will was probably the only thing keeping her from glaring accusation at him.
“Not to worry. I’ll bring the cheeky rotter’s head to you on a platter.” Eroll glanced at Chris, then back at Allara. “Don’t go too hard on the blighter, what? Whatever went wrong today, you’re in the fight together now.”
Chris shifted his weight. If Eroll got himself injured or killed out there, that would be his fault as well. And that, more than all the other possible consequences he could see right now, wasn’t something he wanted to live with.
He held out his hand. “Good luck. I wish I could come with you.”
Eroll gripped it. “Not a bit of it. Gifted have plenty more important things to do with their time.”
Allara drew Eroll’s gaze back to hers. “Please be safe.”
“Forever obedient, my heart’s only queen.” He doffed his hat, swooping feather and all. “Farewell to you both.” With a last grin, he turned the horse about and trotted back down the street.
Side by side in the empty courtyard, Chris and Allara stood in silence. He didn’t ask what she was thinking, not that she would have told him. She cared about Eroll Leighton, Duke of Thyra, that much was clear.
“He’s a good guy,” he said.
She kept staring down the road. “If that means he’s more forgiving than I am, then it’s true.”
The shadow of another train fell over them, and two of the glass-cased cars slid down the cables and stopped a foot or so off the ground, swinging slightly. The front one was about six feet long, backed by a second one three times its size.
Quinnon and a guard led the horses up a ramp at the back end of the long car, and the conductor opened a smaller door at the
car’s front and flipped out a set of steps. He held the door as Allara crossed the courtyard and climbed them.
Chris followed her inside. Two fist-sized glass candle globes hung from the corners and glittered against the floor-to-ceiling windows that encased the compartment.
Allara stood behind the farthest of the three seats. “It’s seven hours yet to Réon Couteau. Best try to sleep. Come morning, you’ll have to face the Garowai.”
He sat in the middle chair and leaned back. His tired muscles sagged into the soft upholstery. “Who’s the Garowai?”
“You’ll see for yourself tomorrow.”
The car rocked beneath Quinnon’s heavy tread as he mounted the stairs. He slammed the door behind him and yanked off his leather gauntlets. “Just as well we got here when the station was closed.” He tugged a silken rope attached to the ceiling. “The conductor wouldn’t have been the only one who had wonderings about our boy here. Be better if most folks thought Mactalde got here before the Gifted, so’s they don’t match two and two together and put the finger on him first off.”
A bell tinkled distantly, and the car gave one abbreviated lurch, then inched up the cable.
The floor slanted, and Chris nearly toppled out of his chair.
“Swivel it around, so you can lean against the back.” Quinnon twisted both his and Allara’s empty chairs around and locked them in place with a click.
Allara eased her way across the car and sat down, hands in her lap. She stared out the side windows as they climbed above the town’s smoky streets. Her left hand rubbed the crooked finger on her right.
In a few minutes, they reached the peak of their climb and the train leveled out. As they picked up speed—maybe as much as thirty miles per hour—the wind hissed against the windows and the cars swayed on their cables.
Chris slid down in the chair until his head was cushioned against the backrest. His eyelids drifted shut of their own accord. For all he knew the Searcher and her bodyguard would stab him as soon as he was unconscious, but his body was fading out from under him. In another second, he’d be—
—asleep. He blinked his eyes open one more time to glance at Allara in her seat beside him. A ray of sunlight speared his vision, and his heart gave one hard thud. He sat bolt upright.
He was back in Mactalde’s living room. The chair Mactalde had sat in was still beside his head, the glass he had drunk from still on the end table behind him. But the couch and everything else he’d been touching when he’d fallen asleep was gone—including his clothes.
“Great.” His lip pinched and tore. He raised a fingertip to his mouth, and it came away with a pink thread of blood from where Harrison had punched him two days ago.
Or was it only yesterday?
The muscles that had been wet slag seconds ago were now only stiff from sleeping on the hardwood floor. He pawed at his left shoulder, but the skin was smooth—unmarred by any Koraudian bullet.
So much for any last hope this was all a grand farce. Mactalde’s couch was in Lael. Mactalde was in Lael. And Chris was in deep trouble. Head hung back, he breathed out hard.
But at least he wasn’t crazy. He snorted. Thank heaven for little miracles.
He looked around. No one was in the room, and judging from the slant of the sunlight, the day was already deep into afternoon. He had fallen asleep on Mactalde’s couch on Thursday, which meant it was now probably about one or two on Friday afternoon. Why hadn’t Mactalde’s servants, or at least his bodyguard, tried to get into the room to find their boss? And what were they going to think when Chris came streaking out from behind locked doors with no sign of Mactalde anywhere?
He scrambled to his feet and snagged a maroon throw off the remaining couch to use as a sarong. He cracked the doors open.
The hallway lay in silence. Sunlight the color of old gold pooled on the floor. He pushed the door open another foot and stuck his head around the corner. No one challenged him, so he cinched the blanket a little tighter and stepped into the hall.
Outside, a car with a high-octane engine powered past and its roar magnified the stillness.
Maybe Mactalde had sent the servants and the hired muscle away for the week. Or maybe, in anticipation of his departure, he had dismissed them permanently. Either way, Chris didn’t have much choice. He had to get some clothes, and he had to get out of here.
He crossed the hall and ran up the wide staircase, taking the steps two at a time. Under the circumstances, the loan of a polo shirt, a pair of slacks, and some shoes was the least Mactalde owed him.
He found the master bedroom, raided the closet, and started back.
He was halfway down the stairs when a key grated in the front door’s lock, and a man’s silhouette loomed against the frosted glass. Chris froze for half a second, then grabbed the railing and vaulted into the shadow of the staircase.
The lock thumped open and the door swung inward. He leaned against the curve of the solid mahogany staircase and waited. The man in the doorway stood for a moment, then tugged the key from the door and turned the lock behind him. Footsteps padded against the thick carpet, headed toward the living room.
Chris slid forward and twisted around to see through the rails. Near the office’s open door, the broad-shouldered bodyguard, Geoff Kaufman, eased a hand beneath his suit jacket and let it rest against his chest, just where a holstered handgun would ride. At the living room’s open door, he stopped, leaned his shoulder into the wall, and eased around the corner.
Of course Mactalde wouldn’t just let Chris walk away. If Chris died in Chicago, the Orimere would be useless against the Koraudians. Blood hammered in his muscles. He hissed through his teeth and pulled back.
Kaufman pushed into the living room, and Chris crept to the back of the house. He edged through a swinging door into the empty kitchen. At the far end of the room, a door beckoned, sunlight spilling through the floor-length blinds.
He knew the door would be locked, but he tried the handle anyway. On the wall, a keypad’s red light blinked. A house alarm. He grimaced. One way or the other, Kaufman was going to know he’d been here.
He found a bar stool next to the counter, picked it up, and smashed it against the blinds. Somewhere deep in the house, alarms screamed. A door slammed, and footsteps stomped down the hall. He scooped the blinds out of the way and leapt over the ragged edge of glass. His feet hit the cement apron outside running. He reached the dock at the far end of the lawn and took a turn, headed up the water’s edge.
Something chomped into the sand ahead of him, and clods blasted up from the ground. He darted a look over his shoulder.
Midway across Mactalde’s yard, the dark-suited bodyguard stood with a noise-suppressed handgun clamped in both hands. The gun rebounded, and another shot ripped past Chris’s head.
Adrenaline gushed, and he started veering from side to side. Kaufman wasn’t following him, so obviously, he had no intention of pursuing a footrace down the North Shore, gun in hand. Right now, that was about the only reason to hope.
One more shot zipped past, then the shooting stopped. He fought to keep up his speed and make his burning muscles give just a little bit more. Unless Kaufman was inclined to simply give up the chase, he was probably tearing back through Mactalde’s house, headed for his vehicle.
Twenty yards ahead, black rails fenced off the end of the neighborhood. Forcing a last burst from his body, he jumped and just managed to catch the top of the fence with both hands and drag himself over. He dropped onto the other side and started running.
Two blocks down, a car horn squawked and brakes squealed. A blur of orange swerved in and out of his vision.
Pulse spiking, he reeled around and blinked at the rusty orange Volkswagen in the middle of the street.
Mike opened the door and stepped out. “Where have you been? I was about ready to call the morgue!”
A ride was exactly what Chris needed right now, but the last place he wanted Mike to be was between him and some psycho assassin. He ran
toward the car. “What are you doing here?”
The Bug’s other door opened, and Mike’s sister bobbed out. Brooke’s eyes went wide, and her hand rose to her mouth. “Chris, your lip!”
That made the day just about perfect. If he didn’t want Mike in the way when trouble was coming, he didn’t want Brooke’s dithering attempts at being useful and supportive around, period.
The muscles in Mike’s neck bulged, and a flush crept up his face. “Look, bro, it’s your life. I don’t care what you do with it just about as much as you don’t care. But you could at least show a little consideration. When you said you’d be back late, I had no idea how late that really meant.”
Brooke rounded the end of the car, already reaching for his arm, as if he were an invalid. “And the police brought the Bug back. They said you were there when an old man got shot, and then you got hit on the head!” Her free hand darted to her hairline, smoothing back the little hairs escaped from her ponytail.
She was a pretty enough girl, blonde in a stylish way, her complexion smooth and fair with just a smattering of tomboyish freckles across her nose. But today was really not the kind of day to put him in the mood for her manic affection.
He hustled her back to the car. “We need to get out of here.”
She craned her head back so she could look at him. “They said this doctor guy took you home. We tried to call him, but we couldn’t get an answer.”
“What’s up with that?” Mike watched Chris over the roof of the car. “And what’s the matter with you? Running through the streets? If you’ve got a concussion, that’s the last thing you should be doing.”
“Just get in the car.” He reached inside the Bug, pulled the front seat forward, and pushed Brooke into the back. Mike’s car wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. The sooner they got out of here the better. “We’ll talk while we drive.” He ducked into the passenger seat.
Mike stood for a few seconds more. “Fine.” He slid back inside and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the whole vehicle.
A black truck with tinted windows turned onto the street, and Chris scrunched down. It had to be the same truck that had carried away Harrison’s drive-by shooters.
“Get us out of here,” he said.
Mike looked at him. “Are you going to tell me what’s the matter or what?”
Chris spared a growl. “See that truck? There’s a guy with a gun in it.”
Brooke clutched at the back of his seat. “A gun?”
That was enough to get Mike moving. The truck was almost on top of them by the time he got the engine started and the Bug steered back into the right lane.
Chris kept his head down and stopped breathing. The truck took centuries to creep past, but when he finally dared to look in the rearview mirror, no glare of brake lights lit the truck’s bumper. Maybe Kaufman hadn’t seen him get into the car. He closed his eyes and breathed out.
Mike drove with both hands clenched on the steering wheel. As soon as he reached the first turn, he stepped on the gas. The Bug bucked once in protest, then leveled out.
He looked at Chris. “All right, let me have it. All of it. There’s a guy with a gun after you?”
Chris opened his mouth to explain. But the truth would either have Mike laughing or calling the nearest psychiatric ward. Or both. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I bet it is. But considering I just dragged you out of death’s maw, why don’t you try uncomplicating it for me.”
His mind spun, trying to grapple this thing down to its simplest factor. “It’s like the cops told you. I saw someone get shot yesterday down on the South Side. This guy must have tracked me to Dr. Mactalde’s. I’m a witness, so he wants to kill me.”
Brooke puffed out a breath. “I can’t believe it. That’s awful.”
Mike’s eyes were almost as round as hers. “Do the police know? Are they going to give you some kind of protection?”
“No, I don’t think they know. Can we head there now?”
Mike slapped his blinker. “And this Dr. Mactalde left you alone?”
“Not exactly. Maybe he just didn’t want to answer his phone.”
Come to think of it, the first thing the police were going to want to do was talk to Dr. Faolan Mactalde. When they couldn’t find him, they were going to start searching for explanations and connections. And Chris was the most obvious connection between an attempted murder yesterday and a disappearance today.
He grimaced. “Actually, never mind about the police station. I’ll go in later by myself. It’d be better that way. And I should probably get some rest.”
“What?” Mike said. “You’ve got someone gunning you down and you’re going to deal with it later because you need to rest?”
“Maybe he does need to rest,” Brooke said. “His lip is bleeding.”
Mike ignored her. “What is going on here? Where’s this Dr. Mactalde? What are you holding back?”
Chris rubbed at the sweaty grit on his forehead. “I’m not holding back. I just . . . can’t tell you right now.”
“Why not? Is he in on it too and you’re covering for him?”
“No.” Chris dropped his hand. “You think I’ve totally flipped?”
“Of course not,” Brooke said.
“Not yet anyway.” The steering wheel bobbled in Mike’s grip as the Bug argued their straight course. He stared ahead, frowning.
In front of them, the road’s yellow dividing line hiccupped past. Beyond the driver’s side window, Lake Michigan stretched to the horizon, dazzling beneath the spilled gold of the late afternoon sun.
The back of Chris’s head thrummed, and his wind-burned throat tickled. He opened the window, and the wind knifed his skin, chilly for the middle of June. It felt like the beginning of autumn, the first whisper of cold that always hugged the tail end of summer.
Other than Lisa, Mike was the only person he had ever been able to count on. But not even Mike was going buy into the truth.
He took a cooling breath and let it out. “If I told you what was going on, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Brooke hunched forward between the seats. “Of course we would.”
Five years younger, she had been the annoying tagalong when Chris and Mike were growing up. Nowadays, she was on a writing kick that had her continually sniffing out “the best leads” and trying to get Chris to help her pass them on to what she imagined was his vast network of magazine and newspaper connections.
He hesitated. The last thing he needed was her getting her teeth into this. But if he left it hanging, she would probably just keep her gnawing at it.
He looked at Mike. “Okay, here it is. Mactalde set me up.”
Mike drummed his finger against the steering wheel. “For what?”
“His disappearance.” This time he glanced at Brooke, just to see how she was taking it.
Her face had gone serious. “You mean his murder? You’re going to investigate it?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to investigate.”
“Yes, there is! A man was shot. You were shot at and bashed in the head. Then this Dr. Mactalde disappears.” She hung onto the back of his seat. “We could write it into an article together. It could be my big break!”
Mike hacked a disgusted sound. “Your biggest concern here is impressing the editor of Weekly World News?”
“Of course not.” She leaned back in her seat, her ponytail slinking up and down. “But why can’t we kill two birds with one stone? Please, just let me give it a try.”
Chris shook his head. “Even if the kind of investigation you’re talking about would end up being helpful, I don’t want a story like this in any paper.”
“Oh, c’mon, don’t you want to know the answers?” Her face lit up. “I have contacts that could help us. I used to date this guy who worked for a psychologist.”
Mike looked into the rearview mirror. “You talking about that big guy with the crazy eyes?”
She scowled. “He wasn’t cra
zy. Anyway, I’m not dating him anymore.” She clasped her hands and pulled her shoulders up in a little shrug. “I’ve been waiting for a story like this forever!”
Mike batted down his visor. “Oh yeah, great, just great. Chris has some lunatic following him, shooting at him, and beating him up. Most awesome thing I’ve heard all day.”
Chris made a face. “He didn’t beat me up. He walked up behind me and hit me on the back of the head.”
“Whatever. You’re bleeding and he’s not.” Mike raised his eyebrows at Brooke. “The point is—leave it alone. I mean it. This is none of your business. You’ll only dive in and make it worse.”
“If Chris wants help, I’m here to give it to him. We’ll write the story together.”
Chris opened his mouth. He didn’t want to burst her bubble—again—but the whole notion of her going all OCD ace reporter was one of the most terrifying ideas in a terrifying day. “Brooke, I don’t think so.”
Her lips bunched in a pout and she eased all the way back in her seat, arms across her chest. “If you get yourself murdered because you refused to let me take action, it’s on your head.”
They drove in silence for another mile before Mike looked over at him. “Why do you say Mactalde set you up?”
“Just a hunch.” The kind of hunch that came from someone telling you his master plan to your face, then trying to shoot you in the back.
Mike firmed his mouth. “All right. You don’t want to tell me everything that’s going on, fine. But tell me this. Are you mixed up in something you shouldn’t be?”
“Of course he is,” Brooke said. “He’s being shot at.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Mike looked Chris in the eye. “Are you mixed up on the wrong side?”
Considering he’d spent most of his first day in Lael mixing it up all over the wrong side of things, he couldn’t quite manage to meet Mike’s gaze.
“Don’t worry. I’m sorting it out.”
Mike snorted. “I don’t believe you.”
Chris couldn’t blame him. When it came right down to it, he didn’t quite believe himself either.
