by Laura Legend
It was too much. She took two steps forward and crashed face-first onto her bed, her feet hanging off the edge, as her body shut down, utterly exhausted.
When she resurfaced—five minutes later? Five hours?—the light was on in the bathroom and the shower was running. Zach’s filthy clothes were in a pile on the floor. Cass stripped off her own clothes and staggered, stiff and sore, in the direction of the bathroom. She slipped into the shower, surprising Zach.
They stood there in the shower, mute, leaning on each other just for the strength to stand, until all the blood and ash had washed down the drain and the hot water was gone.
They toweled off and crawled into bed.
In the early hours before dawn, Cass woke with a start. Zach was asleep next to her, snoring. Despite the layers of blankets on the bed, Cass was shivering. The temperature wasn’t the problem. She was. The cold was radiating outward. It was coming from deep inside of her. Her finger were stiff, her nose blue, and she couldn’t quite feel her toes.
Zach, on the contrary, was radiating heat. Cass scootched closer to Zach and pressed the length of body against his, hoping to leach some heat. But the moment her cold skin made contact with his, Zach woke up like he’d just been shocked with electricity.
“Holy shit!” he breathed. “You’re freezing.”
He pulled her close, trying not to flinch, and rubbed her shoulders.
Cass, unable to resist the temptation, put her frozen foot on the inside of Zach’s warm thigh for a moment. Zach almost jumped out of bed before his sense of chivalry overrode his fight-or-flight response.
Cass’s had intended it as a joke, but she didn’t have the strength for followthrough.
“Sorry,” she whispered, penitent.
“Forgiven,” Zach whispered back, pulling her close again.
Cass was overcome by a powerful mix of gratitude for Zach and grief at all that had been lost. Cold tears streamed down her cheeks. How, she wondered, could she still be grieving for her mother after all these years? How could that still be the pointed tip of the dagger that pierced her heart?
“We were so close, Zach.” Cass said. “We were so close to settling down together. We were so close to finding some kind of rhythm, some version of a normal life. And then, just when we’d found it, the whole thing blew up. It disintegrated in our hands. We lost it—like everything else.”
Cass paused for a moment, then corrected herself. “Or, more accurately, they stole it.”
Zach flinched a little at the hard edge in her voice.
Cass’s grip on Zach tightened.
“Cass—“
“I know what you’re going to say, Zach. That I need to let this go. That I need to let this rest. That I need make peace with it.”
“Cass—”
“I can’t do it, Zach. I won’t. I can’t just ‘make peace’ with this. There won’t be any peace until the scales are balanced.”
“Balanced for who, Cass?” Zach asked. “For the Shield? For the monastery?”
Cass wiped more tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“For your Mom?”
This time, the silence felt like Cass was agreeing.
“You want revenge,” Zach said.
It was a statement, not a question.
At first, Cass balked at Zach’s use of the word “revenge.” But then, as she let the word ring in her head, it began to feel like a good fit, like an accurate name for exactly what she wanted.
“Yes,” Cass said, her voice as cold as her body, “I want revenge.”
Zach cradled her head and smoothed her hair.
“If we can find the Holy Coat,” Cass said, “then we can find the Lost. And if we can find the Lost, then we can stop Miranda.”
Cass lifted her head and propped herself up on her elbow. She looked Zach in the eye.
“Are you in?” she asked.
Zach swallowed hard. “When it comes to you,” he said, “there is only one answer to that question.”
He kissed Cass softly on the lips.
“I’m in.”
20
CASS KNEW WHAT she needed to do—she had to find the Holy Coat—but she didn’t know how to do it.
If the Lost, with all their resources, were hell-bent on finding it and were still unable to do so, how was she going to beat them to it?
Even Kumiko had only pretended to know.
Cass felt the frustration build inside of her and then discharge itself, like a spark of static electricity, in a flurry of kicks and punches that backed Zach against the basement wall.
“Good,” Zach said, blocking Cass’s blows with a cushioned pad. “Good energy. Now add some focus and direction to the mix. Dial in that energy, point it in a specific direction.”
They’d decided to get some exercise to clear their heads while they tried to work out a plan. Cass had, years ago, cleared a corner of her Dad’s basement for training and installed some mats, weights, and practice dummies.
As a whole, the basement, with its dark wood paneling and shaggy carpet, had the feel of something time-warped straight out of the 70s. Her parents had always talked about remodeling the basement into an office for Rose but, after her death, her father never had the heart to carry through on the plan. He rarely came down here and was happy to let Cass do with it as she pleased.
The ceiling was a little low, but Cass didn’t care. She wasn’t very tall. And she liked the cool temperatures and concrete bunker vibe of the space. It felt safe. And private.
Cass backed away from Zach and tried to gather herself. Her attack hadn’t had anymore focus than her wandering eye usually did. She walked to the edge of the mat and toed the spot where the Wing Chun dummy now in her studio apartment had, for years, been previously stationed. The imprint left by the dummy’s weight was still visible in the surface of the mat.
Cass looked around the room. The dummy’s imprint reminded her that another piece of important furniture had once been located in this basement.
“My practice dummy used to sit right here,” Cass said, pointing at the imprint with her toe. “And the ‘very special’ couch in my apartment was over there, in that corner, for years and years.”
Zach looked over at the empty corner with a wistful look in his eyes.
“Oh, to have known you in high school,” he sighed. “The make-out sessions we could have had on that couch.”
But Cass wasn’t paying him any attention.
She was lost in thought.
Had that couch worked as a portal to the Underside all those years she’d just sat on it? If she’d pulled off the cushions, would it have led her twelve-year-old self down a narrow set of stairs and into the concrete hallways of the Underside? Or, if she’d known to pay attention as a child, could she have caught a glimpse of her mother disappearing into their basement furniture?
What else had she missed?
Cass looked around the room. There were boxes filled with old magazines. A record player and a crate full of records. An ancient TV with a fat dial for flipping stations. And, in the opposite corner, a Barcalounger.
Her gaze fixed on the armchair.
“Umm, Cass?” Zach asked. “Are we still working out?”
What would she find if she looked under the seat cushion of that armchair?
Cass stepped off the mat and walked across the room. Zach followed her, curious. She lifted up the edge of the cushion and took a peak. It was too dark to see anything.
Fine, she thought, it’s all or nothing with these mysteries. It’s best to just pull the damn Band-Aid off.
With one swift move, she pulled the cushion off and handed it to Zach, obscuring his view.
“What is it?” he asked, trying to see around the edge of the cushion.
“Just what I thought,” Cass said quietly. “Nothing.”
The underside of the cushion only held the ordinary kinds of mysteries guarded by armchairs across the world: lint, spare change, stale popcorn, and lost
pens.
Cass reached for the cushion from Zach, ready to put it back and get on with their workout, when she saw something glint from deep in the side of the chair. Zach tried to hand her the cushion, but she shoved it back into his arms and leaned over to get a better look. A loop of a fine silver chain was poking out. Cass slipped her finger through the loop and extracted the rest of the chain from the crack. An inexpensive silver medallion hung from the other end.
Cass held it up to the bank of fluorescent lights. Zach leaned in close, looking over her shoulder, hands on her waist.
The medallion bore an image of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Jude’s head was encircled in fire. He was holding a club in one hand and a carpenter’s rule in the other. He appeared to be looking back over his shoulder, as if he expected to be overtaken by whatever hopeless cause was chasing him.
Cass curled the necklace in the palm of her hand.
“It was my mother’s,” she said. “She loved St. Jude. The woman loved a good lost cause. And she loved the fact that Jude had the same name as Judas. For his original twelve apostles, Jesus picked two James and two Judases. If you don’t know your apostles, it’s easy to mistake the one Judas for the other. In the end, though, they couldn’t have been more different: one was Lost and the other became the patron saint of the lost.”
Cass slipped the necklace into her pocket and turned her attention back to Zach.
“Where were we?” she asked.
“Trying to figure out how to solve the problem of our own lost cause,” Zach answered. “We need some kind of strategy for tracking down the Holy Coat.”
“Right,” Cass said. “And what had we decided?”
“That punching some stuff might give us some good ideas about where to start.”
“Right. Well, at least we gave the Barcalounger a thorough examination.”
Just then, they heard someone pounding impatiently on the front door. They both looked up toward the front door and then locked eyes.
Gary had gone to work. Apart from the two of them, the house was empty. And Cass didn’t like the sound of that knock. That knock was either trouble or the worst UPS driver ever.
Cass grabbed her sword and bounded up the stairs. Sword raised, she unbolted the lock and swung the door open.
Maya Krishnamurti was standing there, her waist-length hair gleaming in the sun, examining her nails.
She eyed Cass from head to toe and then focused her attention on the raised the sword in Cass’s hand.
“I’m glad you’re so happy to see me,” she said, winking. “I wasn’t sure what kind of reception to expect.”
21
CASS’S FATHER HAD a weakness for bologna. Whether this weakness was genetic or behavioral, he’d passed it along to Cass. On the grounds that it wasn’t actually food, Rose had fought them both for years, but lost. As a result, no matter what time of day or night, you could find a container of bologna in the Jones family refrigerator.
When Cass saw the round plastic container sitting beside the milk, she knew she’d found just the thing for Maya Krishnamurti.
While she and Maya weren’t exactly enemies, they weren’t friends either. Yes, Maya had helped them recover the chains of St. Paul—but she’d also swapped the relic for a fake and tried to double-cross them. And, yes, Maya had been the only thing stopping Miranda from smash-and-grabbing the sarira after Cass had won the tournament—but Maya had also tried and failed to do the same thing herself just days before. Perhaps most importantly, though, was the fact that as VP of most everything at York Enterprises, Maya did not approve of Richard’s interest in Cass. She was of the opinion that, where Cass was concerned, Richard was wildly irrational. In her mind, Richard’s inconvenient rediscovery of his “heart” had compromised his ability to make cool, clear, rational judgments.
When Cass reluctantly invited Maya inside the house, Maya had hesitated for a moment before stepping across the threshold. As she entered, she looked around in wonder at the house’s afghans, knick-knacks, armchairs, and family photos as if she had never personally been inside an ordinary suburban house before. She had the bearing of an anthropologist visiting a primitive culture and, in her trademark sleek, sleeveless power dress and heels, she looked just as out of place.
This was when Cass had decided to sit Maya down in the tiny kitchen. And most importantly, this was when Cass had decided that she was definitely serving her a bologna sandwich on Wonder bread for lunch.
Without asking if Maya wanted anything, Cass set out some plates and glasses. She filled the glasses with lukewarm tap water and then got out the Wonder bread. Maya sat perched on the edge of her chair, not quite ready to commit to sitting at the kitchen table. Zach took the same seat he’d sat in last night.
“What can I do for you, Maya?” Cass asked over her shoulder as she rooted around in the fridge.
Maya sat up a little bit straighter, recovering her sense of purpose and power.
“The destruction of the Shield,” she began, nodding in Zach’s direction in a gesture of polite condolence, “is going to send shockwaves through the world as it is presently organized. Balances of power will shift. And, in the face of such instability, we have to be ready to safeguard the interests of York Enterprises.”
“Yes,” Zach deadpanned, “and, of course, we have to be ready to protect the world at large?”
Cass laid the bologna and the Miracle Whip out on the counter, then placed two slices of Wonder bread on each plate. Maya eyed the whole process warily with one sculpted eyebrow half raised.
“That too,” Maya agreed. “The end of the world is, in the long run, decidedly bad for business,” she said dryly.
“Right,” Cass said, spreading the Miracle Whip, distributing the bologna, and assembling the sandwiches.
She set the glasses with tap water on the table—little, swirling particulates visible in the sunlight—gave everyone a plate with a sandwich, and joined Zach and Maya at the table. She watched Maya poke at the edge of the sandwich uncomfortably before deciding to just ignore it. Cass suspected that, all in all, Maya frequently resorted to this same strategy in the course of any given day. When Cass turned her attention to Zach, she found that half his sandwich was already gone.
“Does Richard know you’re here?” Cass asked, recalling that she’d asked Richard the same question about Maya. She took a bite of her sandwich and waited for a response.
Maya eyed Zach’s and Cass’s rings. Then she offered a variation on what Richard had said in response to the same question.
“Richard did not send me. But I told him I was coming and he did not stop me.”
“Right,” Cass said.
“Our interests are, for the present, aligned. If we can restore a measure of order to the world, that is good for everyone. There is no reason we cannot work together.”
“Right,” Cass said, “no reason.”
Maya pushed her plate back from the edge of the table and leaned in toward Cass. She looked Cass in the eye, trying to gauge her mood.
“You’re angry,” Maya said.
Cass just held her gaze. Though doing so wasn’t hard. Maya’s fierce, undivided attention was magnetic.
“You’re more than angry,” Maya said, smiling. “You want . . . revenge.”
Cass felt her ears burn red. Her hand in her lap involuntarily clenched into a tight fist.
“But you have a problem. You have to find them first. And to find them, you have to find the Holy Coat.”
Cass cocked her head to the side, inviting Maya to go on.
Maya stood, dumped her sandwich in the garbage, put her plate in the sink, and downed the whole glass of water. Cass could tell from the radiance of her dark skin that Maya was a woman who took hydration seriously. More than once, Cass had found herself wanting to reach out and see what that skin felt like.
“But you don’t know where to look. In fact, you don’t even know where to start.”
Cass weighed the coming of
fer in her mind. What was this going to cost her? What was Maya’s game?
“What do you get out of this, Maya?” Cass asked. “What’s in it for you?”
Cass knew that everything Maya did involved wheels within wheels within wheels.
Maya pursed her lips seductively, but left the question hanging.
“I, on the other hand, know where to start. I do not yet know the location of the coat, but I know someone who does. This man is an old, old . . . friend. He is, in fact, the original Turned vampire.”
“Interesting. The catch?” Cass asked.
“To ask him where it is, we have to find him first.”
22
IT WAS EASY to follow Maya through a crowd. The sea of people instinctively parted for her. Cass and Zach just had to keep up and follow in her wake.
Maya was leading them through the London Underside. She took them down a busy but subdued thoroughfare—was it just Cass’s grief, or was word of the attack on the monastery coloring the mood of the whole Underside?—past the original BO-BS bar, and down a side street into a part of the hub that Cass had never visited before.
The streets narrowed and turned to cobblestone. The buildings were smaller, older, and packed more closely together. The district had the distinctive vibe of a medieval European city, but peppered with neon lights.
Wearing jeans, t-shirt, jacket, and boots, Cass marveled at how Maya how could be so sure-footed in heels on the street’s continually uneven surface. Zach, Cass noticed, was studiously not marveling at Maya’s feet or legs or anything else. Pretending not to notice Maya was a little ridiculous, but Cass appreciated the effort. She could get behind Zach’s newfound interest in architecture.
With smaller crowds and narrower streets, however, they began to lose some of their anonymity. As they bumped into people headed in the opposite direction, Cass started to notice people whispering and pointing at Maya. Maya was, unsurprisingly, a person of some reputation and, especially in the London hub, not hard to recognize.
