Echo City

by Layla Lawlor

  "Jeez, Drew. Stay away from her." I lay flat on the floor and folded my hands under my chin so that I could look down at him more comfortably. "I'm seriously hoping she won't come back. I don't know how to keep her out if she does."

  "What is she?" Drew asked.

  "Something like Muirin, I think." I rested my chin on my fists wearily. "I feel like I betrayed her."

  "Jill?"

  "Muirin."

  "Isn't she like a zillion years old and stuffed full of magic? Worry about you, not her."

  I scowled down at him. "I can't handle you being nice to me right now."

  "Okay, how's this, then. Talking to you through a hole in the ceiling is giving me a crick in my neck."

  "Your neck is a figment of your imagination, Drew."

  "Right now it's a figment with a crick in it. Can I come up?"

  "Can you come up? I thought you couldn't."

  "I don't know," Drew said. "Maybe if you invite me? Your room—it's the same feeling as when I try to leave the house, like I've run into a glass wall. A wet, slippery one. I just slide along it rather than coming in."

  "Muirin talks about thresholds," I said, intrigued. "I guess they would affect you just like any other supernatural creature. I didn't even realize my room had one. That's interesting. And no, I don't want you to have access to my bedroom anytime you want it."

  Drew sighed and swung his whole body ninety degrees, so that he was standing on the wall with his back parallel to the floor, looking up at me. "Oh. That's better."

  "Now you're making me nauseated."

  Leanne's door opened a crack, and her head appeared. "Who are you talking to?"

  Drew made a face at me.

  "A ghost," I said, and then regretted it when Leanne vanished into her bedroom and slammed the door.

  "You know, Kay, you can be a real asshole sometimes," Drew said.

  I rubbed my eyes. He was right, and I knew it, and that made me angry, vicious. "You're lecturing me on being an asshole?"

  "Takes one to know one," Drew said, and vanished.

  "Drew—shit."

  I lay there for a little while, chin on fist, staring down into the empty hallway. It was a strange thing we had going, Drew and I. We hadn't liked each other all that much when he was alive. And now he was dead, and I was the only person he could talk to, and we'd fallen into a strange sort of ... I didn't know if it was friendship, exactly, but we both seemed to enjoy the mutual dicking with each other.

  And yet there were lines. And I was sorry that I'd crossed one.

  I closed the trapdoor and wandered to the dormer window. I was an asshole to Leanne. No wonder she avoided me. I'd never really been friendly to her. It was just so difficult dealing with people who were ...

  .... Normal, I thought. I think I'm losing the ability to relate to mundanes.

  I was conscious of an ever-widening gulf between Leanne's life and mine, between Fresca's and mine. It was hard to care about classes and work shifts when I was going out and risking my life every night, exploring a world of monsters and illusions and magic cities. It was getting harder to even relate to people whose lives revolved around those things.

  And I'd only been doing this for two months. What would it be like after two years? After ten?

  How could I protect the world if I lost the ability to feel like I belonged in it?

  I leaned against the window frame and looked out at the yard. The radiance of my second sight was beginning to fade, but the trees were still limned in green and aqua and electric blue.

  And that wasn't all.

  If I hadn't been looking at the world with my second sight, I'd probably have dismissed the slender shape at the edge of the woods as a random artifact of light and shade. But with a red and gold corona around it, there was no mistaking it. One of the white wolfhounds still watched the house from the shadows under the trees.

  I went down to Fresca's room and fetched her birdwatching binoculars to get a closer look. This dog had a dark red collar, which meant if the color-coding held true, it was the original—the one that had helped me and Lily-Bell against the Tiger.

  It was standing as still as a marble statue, until I started wondering if it was alive at all, but finally one ear twitched and it bent its fine-boned head to nip at an itch on its flank. Then it raised its head, pointed its long snout at the house, and resumed its intent stare.

  I owed these dogs a thank-you. They'd tried to protect the house, and by extension, me. And this one—if it was the same dog—had gone into battle to save my life.

  Before I could lose my nerve, I went downstairs and retrieved a bucket of leftover chicken nuggets from the fridge. Then I left the safety of the house and ventured out into the yard. Crickets shirred in the grass. The haloes in my vision had mostly faded, but I could still see a dim red glow at the edge of the unkempt thicket between the yard and the creek. I approached with caution, holding the bucket of chicken in front of me like a shield.

  The dog remained still, but its ears shifted forward, pricking up.

  Gwyn had told me her name—what had it been? I struggled before dredging up the unfamiliar word, or an approximation of it. "Hi, Crythulad. Here, girl." I held out my hand with a chicken nugget in the palm.

  Crythulad sniffed the offering, inspected it, then gently took it from my fingers, giving me an uncomfortable look at her huge teeth. She snarfed it down and looked at me hopefully. Her tail wagged.

  "Come on inside, have some more."

  She trotted at my heels, polite as any well-trained show dog. At the sight of our guest, Fresca's cat Twinkie, horrified, puffed up to twice her normal size and shot out of the kitchen with a hiss. Crythulad looked after her with interest, but didn't try to chase her.

  I set the bucket of chicken on the floor. While she ate it, I looked up the Mabinogion online. I managed to locate Crythulad by the backwards route of looking through all the characters until I realized that it was actually spelled Creiddylad.

  I switched to Wikipedia. The mythological Creiddylad was the lover of Gwyn ap Nudd, which made me pause with a little "oh," at which Creiddylad, snout buried in the chicken bucket, twitched her ears.

  Gwyn. Bookstore proprietor and dog breeder. Also mythological demigod, apparently.

  I didn't want to ponder the Creiddylad situation too closely, because it reminded me of my suspicions regarding Circe and her herd of pigs. "Seriously, man," I said, paging through Gwyn's entry in Wikipedia, "naming a lady dog after your ex is pretty faily, but turning her into one would be even failier. Please tell me you didn't."

  I read onward. Gwyn ap Nudd was the king of the Welsh underworld Annwn, leader of the Wild Hunt in Welsh mythology, and generally associated with winter and death. Sounded like a fun guy. I tried to reconcile that dour description with the sparkle of humor in his leaf-green eyes behind the Lennon glasses.

  Creiddylad woofed softly. I looked up and found that, having finished her chicken, she was waiting politely to be let out. When I opened the door for her, she loped down the driveway with long strides, which let me see that she was favoring one of her hind legs slightly—perhaps a souvenir of the fight with the Tiger.

  I watched until she vanished into the trees, and tried to wrap my brain around the idea that I had just fed chicken nuggets to one of the hounds of the Wild Hunt. I wished I could talk to someone about it.

  "Drew?" I said, but the kitchen felt very empty. He wasn't around.

  I tried to lock the door, but the handle spun freely, broken by Jill. Great, something else to fix. I deadbolted it and went upstairs. In the hallway I hesitated, looking at the strip of light under Leanne's door. I must've stood there for five minutes trying to work up the nerve to knock on her door and apologize.

  In the end, I couldn't. I went upstairs and got out my art supplies, and drew Creiddylad.

  The first sketches turned out flat and uninspiring. I hadn't drawn dogs much. Eventually, after looking up wolfhounds on my phone and doing some sketches, I
had the bright idea of using black paper and colored oil pastels. I outlined the dog's striking white shape in red. The vivid colors on the black paper seemed to glow. I signed it with a flourish.

  "Gwyn, I hope you like your payment."

  Chapter 11

  On Saturday, following instructions from Millie and Irmingard, I drove into the city by way of New Jersey and Staten Island, taking the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the south side of Brooklyn. Their directions and my phone's GPS led me to a small sports complex off Flatbush Avenue, behind a high chain-link fence. Millie's cherry-red T-bird was nowhere in sight until I pulled around the side of the building and a tremendous expanse of pavement opened up in front of me, cracked and old, but still drivable. It was wider than a supermarket parking lot and went on forever under the blue summer sky, to a distantly visible line of trees at the end.

  I had no idea what I was looking at until I spotted Millie's car parked beside an ornate, two-story brick building that had NAVAL AIR STATION - FLOYD BENNETT FIELD blazoned across the top, beneath what was obviously an air control tower. Then I realized I was on an old runway, looking at an old terminal from an era that went in for more grandeur than today's glass and concrete boxes. A much smaller sign advised that the terminal was now a visitor's center. I pulled up and parked beside Millie's car, where she and Irmingard were chatting.

  My car had survived the four-hour drive with nothing worse than an ominous squealing from the engine whenever I went over 55 mph and a rattling sound that had started about fifty miles ago. As always, it was a matter of chance whether I'd be able to get it started again. A piece of the rust-riddled door fell off when I opened it. I felt bad for my poor car, having to park next to Millie's shiny showpiece. It probably felt like I felt in the Marriot Marquis the other night.

  Irmingard, wearing her human glamour again, gave me a hug. I had to kneel down to return it, feeling her thin childlike body under the illusion. Millie, smiling but more reserved, tucked her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket and leaned a hip against the fender of her car.

  "Where am I, exactly?" I asked.

  "Floyd Bennett Field," Millie said. "New York's first municipal airport, turned park and campground. We figured we'd bring you here because it'll be a quick drive on the beltway to pick up your grandma when you get back."

  "You only like coming here because part of it is named after you," Irmingard said, nudging Millie in the thigh.

  Millie laughed. "Yes, there is an Amelia Earhart section of the campground. I set records here, you know. This airport was grand in its heyday—well, I suppose it's quite small by today's standards, but it was wonderfully big and well-maintained then. At that time you had to make do with dirt strips in most of the country."

  For some reason, despite all my experience dealing with things like magic swords and ghosts and Tammany Tigers, it was at times like this that a sense of unreality really hit me—the awareness that I was talking to Amelia Earhart, the Amelia Earhart, on an airfield where she used to land eighty years ago.

  "Are we going to fly somewhere?" I asked.

  Millie shook her head. "No; we're using a door. Lock your car and follow us."

  I retrieved the envelope with the picture I'd drawn for Gwyn from the passenger seat. As I straightened up, Millie frowned thoughtfully at me. "I think you should leave the sword here."

  My opinion must have been written plainly on my face. Millie gave me a rueful smile. "I know how you must feel," she said. "I wouldn't want to go unarmed either. But if the Tigers are aware of the sword and know what it can do to them, or worse, if they're somehow drawn to it, having it with you in the other city would be much worse than nothing at all."

  "We don't know that," I said. The idea of leaving the sword in the car made me a little sick to my stomach. I wasn't sure if this was because I would be unprotected, or because I was leaving it unprotected.

  "Let me put it this way," Millie said. "Though some disagree with me, I don't personally consider the streets of Shadow New York dangerous. All you have to do to remain safe is to be careful, observant and prudent, and take sensible precautions. Taking the sword with you is none of those things." She hesitated. "I'm not going to force you to leave it behind. But, Kay, I spend a lot of time in Shadow New York. Of the people you'll meet on this side, I probably know that place better than anyone besides Taliesin. And I would not be comfortable walking down those streets with an artifact like the sword. I think both it and you are safer with it here."

  I let out a long breath. Irmingard was watching both of us, her homely face open and worried. "All right," I said, and unbuckled the swordbelt. Millie was the expert, and I was, as people kept reminding me, very new to this. I hid the sword and its scabbard under some trash and newspapers on the floor of my car.

  As we walked away, I kept glancing over my shoulder. I'd gotten used to leaving the sword at home while I went to work or class, to the point where I no longer noticed its lodestone tug. But I felt it now, a magnetic undertow sucking at my back.

  We walked down the cracked tarmac of the old runway. The runway markings were still visible, though faded by time. All the old hangars were still there, with windows broken out and ivy climbing their walls. It seemed that we should be alone, the only people in a post-apocalyptic wilderness—but of course you're never really alone in New York. A fit, tanned couple on bicycles whirred past us, and a group of people my age who looked like exchange students were picnicking on the tarmac. Near a dilapidated hangar, a family with three little girls lofted a colorful flotilla of kites. Another hangar, surrounded by construction trailers and scaffolding, looked like it was being renovated.

  "There are soft places around most of the airports in town," Millie told me as we walked. "Places where you can go through to the other New York, I mean. Airports, bus stations, subway terminals—the best places to look for doors to Shadow New York are those that have to do with travel, with a steady stream of people moving in and out. That's where you'll find the most doors, and often the most stable ones. Shadow New York is all about ideas, remember."

  "An idea of travel makes a door more likely to appear?" I asked, and Millie nodded. "Does that mean it's possible to think a door into existence?"

  Millie shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. It's like, say, the way that a religion is more than just one person with a belief. They have to pass that belief along to someone else, until the other person begins to internalize it as part of their own worldview, and then you start to have a religion. In similar fashion, Shadow New York isn't about what you want. It's about what you believe, on a deep-down gut level, in the light and dark places in your soul."

  "Is there any specific reason why you picked this airport to cross over? Though it's super cool," I added, looking down the runway. "I'm glad you brought me here."

  "I use the doors here a lot." Millie shortened her stride so Irmingard could more easily keep up with us. "There are several good ones in this area. By comparison, it's hard to cross over in a place like JFK or Grand Central Station. Too many people, too much security. The abandoned airport up at Flushing used to be another good one, but the access isn't so easy now that they've demolished the buildings. Someone ignoring the No Trespassing signs or leaving a car parked for a few hours draws attention. Around here, you're just another tourist."

  The kite-flying kids waved to us. I waved back and tried to look touristy.

  "Did you want to go anywhere specific?" Irmingard asked. "If you don't have an itinerary, we can take you to some places we both like." She smiled. "But I bet you do. Most people do."

  I nodded and held up the envelope. "I need to run an errand in Greenwich Village. There's a man there I need to see. And I want to go to the Harlem Renaissance."

  Millie gave a brisk nod. "After our talk the other day, I thought that was probably one of the places you'd like to go. I came here with that in mind."

  We reached the end of the runway, where there was a fenced community garden and a lawnli
ke picnic area. On the far side of that, a dense sprawl of vegetation seemed to be reclaiming the area. Millie and Irmingard walked around the end of a concrete bumper without hesitating; there weren't any NO TRESPASSING signs. We were now on the remains of an old paved road, cracked and weedy, with brush crowding both sides as it reverted slowly back to wilderness. The post-apocalyptic feeling was very strong here, the sense of unreality even greater. I could hear birdsongs mixed with the sound of traffic on Flatbush Avenue.

  "Is it okay to just walk around back here?" I kept expecting a security guard to appear and run us off.

  "It's a park," Millie said, shrugging. "No one's ever tried to stop me."

  Low buildings with peeling paint and sagging roofs loomed out of the apparent wilderness around us. I took a couple pictures with my phone to show Fresca. Speaking of whom ... "Hey, I wanted to ask you guys something. Do the Gatekeepers have any kind of ... therapist division, I guess?"

  Millie glanced back at me. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you guys rescue people from monsters, right? What happens to them after that? They must be kind of a mess, and go around babbling about monsters and things. Is there some sort of follow-up department that handles that sort of thing?"

  Millie and Irmingard looked at each other; Millie shrugged. "I think you have an exaggerated idea of how organized we are. There are only a few of us, and really, if it gets to the point where there's wholesale slaughter going down, we've messed up pretty badly."

  "I had two people killed in my yard, and my roommate held hostage in a monster lair," I said. "Maybe it's not all that likely, but it obviously happens. So then what?"

  "That's not exactly our end of things," Irmingard said.

  "Kay, we're a couple dozen people," Millie said. "We're trying to do stopgap first aid on a global crisis. I know it's easy to come in with a bunch of ideas for changing things, but you'll understand when you've been here longer."