He looked up at me.
He smiled.
He held out his hand to show me—shining, clean, searing his flesh with the heat of the discharge—the bullet, its etched markings squirming as if they were in pain. It was my turn to shriek.
Aaron was at my side. I hadn’t known he was there until he pulled me back. A black pistol in his hand fired three times, four. Coin stood up, brushing the grit and gravel from his knees, ignoring Aaron as if he wasn’t there.
“The car!” Aaron yelled. “Get in the car!”
I turned and ran. Coin shouted out words I couldn’t comprehend, and something detonated. I skidded and fell on the pavement, my hands and knees skinned. I wasn’t gong to make it to the car.
Candace was in the driver’s seat, her face pale. She’d forgotten to put on her ski mask, or else had already taken it off. I saw Kim in the backseat, her hand pressed against the window. She could have been a world away. As I rose to my feet, I wondered whether she’d gotten my laptop. It was a disconnected thought, something plucked from the middle of a car wreck.
Aaron was on the ground. Blood flowed from his nose. His eyes weren’t focused. Coin stood over him, head tilted like a man considering a crossword puzzle. I knew the next thing the rider would do would be to kill him. Or worse.
It was pointless. The Hail Mary throw. I gathered my qi the way Chogyi and Ex and Midian had taught me. In the thinned universe of Kim’s cantrip, it seemed weak even to me. I pushed it out my mouth as I shouted.
“Leave him alone!”
Coin looked up. His eyebrows rose. His hand moved faster than a human’s. The fabric of the world pulsed. The sense of being in a clockwork of physics faded. Someone was honking. I heard tires squeal. We were causing a traffic jam. If the plan had worked, Kim and Aaron and Candace and I would already be gone, speeding south on the highway, Coin dead on the road behind us. Aaron groaned, rolled over, rose to his elbows.
“Leave him alone,” I said again. “He isn’t your problem.”
“And you are?” Coin asked. “My problem. It’s you?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “So leave him the hell alone.”
We stood there for the space of five fast heartbeats. I had time to hope that Midian and Chogyi Jake had gotten away. I heard a car door open behind me.
“You aren’t Eric Heller,” he said. “Who are you?”
I pulled off my ski mask. I’d almost sweat through it in the few minutes I’d had it on. The air felt cold against my neck. I shook my head to get the hair out of my eyes. Candace stepped into my peripheral vision, a pistol in her hand. Coin didn’t even bother to look at her. His eyes were on mine. I felt something cold traveling up my spine. Aaron rose to his knees. Coin stepped forward, and Candace started firing. Four fast shots. Someone off to my left started screaming. An engine revved. Coin looked at her, his lips drawing back.
“No! Candace! Get Aaron and get back in the car!” I said, stepping between them. Then to Coin, “Leave them out of it.”
“As you’ve left Alexander out?” Coin said. He meant the big one. The one we’d killed.
“Alexander was mine too,” I said. “They were all mine. You want this stopped? I’m the one. Just me.”
Coin looked back over his shoulder, toward the body of his fallen man. I thought I saw something like sadness in his eyes. Then he turned back to me and nodded.
“Just you,” he said.
He closed his eyes, balled his fists, and shouted. The sound was deafening, a thousand times louder than anything human, and more complex. There were storms in his voice. Earthquakes. Huge beings moving underground. I felt my body tip back and thought I was falling.
When I looked down, the streets were a hundred feet below me. Aaron and Candace were gone, but I saw her car, just beginning to move, finishing the long arc to the south. I saw the tangle of cars and trucks, semis and motorcycles that had piled up behind us. The stolen Hummer, its black doors standing open. Coin’s car with its crumpled hood. The huge man’s body. I could even see the pool of blood.
And then it was two hundred feet below me. And then a thousand. I dropped the rifle, the small black stick flipping down through the empty air. The great asphalt cloverleaf of the highway spun in the distance. I felt a sudden regret. My plan hadn’t worked any better than Eric’s. I wondered what I could have done differently. If there had ever really been a way to win.
Something profoundly cold touched the back of my mind, and the gray world went black.
Twenty-five
I was cold.
Slowly, I became aware of other things. My knees hurt. There was a crick in my neck. All I could hear was a soft wind. When I moved, it made a scraping sound like gravel. But mostly, I was cold. I shifted my head, and something soft and chilly moved under me. I let my eyes slit open. My backpack. My head was resting on my leather backpack like it was a pillow.
I tried to remember where I was, how I’d gotten there. I had a sense of urgency. It was all very, very important. If I could just put my mind back together…
I sat up. The city spread out below me, streets marked by the glowing yellow lines of their lights, the shifting red of taillights in traffic. The western sky was red and gold, the sun already set. All around me was pebbled gray gravel, wide sheet-metal ductwork on raised steel beams. Something partway between a radio antenna and the Eiffel Tower rose up to my left, a red beacon glowing at its tip.
A skyscraper. I was on top of a skyscraper. I tried to stand, but my knees were weak beneath me. I turned slowly. There was a door—green and rust with a dead bolt lock. Coin was sitting beside it. Five inches above his open hand floated a small cylinder of metal that came to a point at one end. The bullet.
The thing in Coin’s body looked over at me, then back at the artifact floating above its hand.
“Nasty piece of work, this,” it said. Its voice was conversational, deep, inhuman. “Ya’la ibn Murah and St. Francis of the Desert both. Unpleasant.”
I tried to think, to focus. I had to say something.
“Fuck you,” I slurred.
It made a soft tsk-tsk and shook its head.
“It isn’t yours. I know that,” the thing said. “Heller designed it. It’s his style. Oh yes, I know my enemies. And I’ve known Heller quite well. You, though, I confess I didn’t expect. You’re Jayné, yes?”
He knew how to pronounce my name, and for the first time since I’d come to, I felt the deep, penetrating rush of fear. Far to the south, a storm cloud still hung on the horizon, lightning flashing so far away there was no thunder. Coin nodded.
“The niece,” it said. “The heir. Eric’s next incarnation. I thought we had put an end to all that, but here you are. And Alexander gone because of it. I suppose I should have guessed. Heller was the past master of putting things in motion.”
“You killed my uncle,” I said. My voice sounded steadier now.
“Yes,” Coin said.
“You’re going to kill me,” I said, sure as I did that it was the truth.
The rider narrowed its stolen eyes. The bullet slid down through the air to land on its upturned palm.
“Possibly,” it said. “If it’s necessary.”
I almost had my feet back. The city below us glittered and darkened. Somewhere out there, down below us, Midian and Chogyi Jake were running for their lives. And Candace and Aaron and Kim. Every minute I kept Coin focused on me was one that its attention wasn’t turned to them.
Run, I thought. Wherever you are out there, get the hell away from here. Live.
“How much do you know?” it asked.
“Enough,” I said. It was silent for a long moment, then nodded.
“And you have made yourself part of this,” he said. It was almost a question.
“Yeah,” I said. The thing in Coin’s body sighed.
“You are a woman of great power. Great potential,” it said. “You needn’t take your uncle’s path. Even with the hurt you’ve caused me, you don’t have
to die here.”
I looked at it. The ink marks on its pale flesh seemed to shift, letters forming and re-forming. Something in the pit of my stomach warmed and rose, and against my own expectations, I laughed. Coin looked nonplussed.
“You’re saying I could join up with you?”
“That’s an option,” it said, vaguely offended.
“Next you offer me all the nations of the world?” I asked. When it looked confused, I gestured to the wide, empty air around us. “Temptation. High place. Devil.”
“Ah,” it said, nodding. “No, I’m not Satan, and you’ve little enough in common with Christ, for that matter. I wasn’t offering to purchase your soul. Only that I would rather we not end this in violence if there isn’t need. If alliance isn’t interesting to you, armistice at least remains a possibility.”
“What? ‘Oops, my bad. Won’t do it again,’ and you let me go?”
“Of course not. I’ve underestimated Heller’s reach, but that doesn’t make me a fool. Renounce your vengeance and there will be an agreement. A binding of intention. Then, yes, you can walk away.”
“Really can’t,” I said.
Coin stood. The man’s body was only a little taller than mine. The business suit looked perversely in place with the arcane designs on its skin. I raised my chin.
“You killed my uncle,” I said again, and shrugged.
“And you are determined to walk in his footsteps,” Coin said. It wasn’t a question, but it was the last chance I had.
I shifted my feet, the gravel crunching under me. I was a thousand feet above the ground, facing a supernatural evil that had already said it was willing to kill me. I didn’t have another bullet or a rifle with which to fire it. Eric’s protections might have been stripped away by Kim’s cantrip. I didn’t have any friends or allies. I was alone, and if I didn’t do what the thing in Coin’s body wanted, I’d be killed. Or I could say no, accept whatever binding it had in mind, and live as its slave and subject until I found a way to slip my leash. If I ever did. But at least I’d be alive. All I had to say was No, I’m not.
“Yeah,” I said. “Really am.”
Coin nodded, its expression resigned and unsurprised.
“This gives me no pleasure,” it said, and drew in its breath. I jumped at it, swinging low. Coin danced out of reach, lifted its hands, and shouted a single syllable. The sound was louder than anything I’d ever heard—like a jet engine about two feet from my face. There were other voices inside it. I heard a chorus of shrieking words, a high wailing, and something deep and chthonic and inhuman. Sound pushed at me like a storm wind.
I set my feet, leaning forward toward Coin’s gaping mouth and outstretched arms. The gravel under me shifted as I slid backward. My mind was jumping in a hundred different directions. I tried to pull up my qi, to force my will down into the soles of my feet to stick me to the spot. There was nothing.
The edge of the building came up behind me faster than I’d expected. The raw force of Coin’s will had shoved me a dozen feet or more. The parapet came up to my thighs, the void on the other side. I dropped to my knees, trying not to pitch over it. My ears rang, and my eyes felt dry and scoured, like I’d been staring into a sandstorm.
And then I was in motion. I curled to the side, pushing through my legs as I did. I landed on my shoulder, rolling gracefully through my back to end up catlike on my fingertips and the balls of my feet. There was no surprise on Coin’s face. It lifted its raised fists, and I jumped to the side as the roofing where I had been burst open, pebbles flying like shrapnel. I felt something dig into my leg, but I ignored the pain. My backpack was inches from my hand, and I swept it up and threw it, the leather singing against the air. It took Coin in the belly. Nothing more than a moment’s distraction, but I was running forward, teeth bared.
My blood was a song, my body a weapon. My mind let go and let my flesh take control without me. Coin blocked a claw-fingered swipe at his neck, but not the kick that I sent hammering into its knee. I wanted to see surprise in its expression, but there was only momentary pain and then grim determination. I danced back, and Coin flipped up a handful of gravel, the unnaturally powerful stones hissing past my ear like gunfire.
It didn’t speak. That time was over. We circled each other, waiting for a break, a moment. A chance. I thought I saw a tremble in the knee I’d kicked. I lunged forward, but it had anticipated the move. It stepped into the attack, taking the momentum on its arm, grabbing the front of my shirt and twisting. I lost contact with the ground, flew through the air out of control. I reached down with one hand, willing myself down to the gray stones. My hand slapped the parapet as I sailed past. For a fraction of a second I was over the edge, looking down the endless drop of black glass and chrome to the distant, glowing street. Then I was hugging the wrong side of the parapet, my legs kicking against the void.
Coin stood above me, both hands raised. I could feel the air change as it gathered its will. I think I screamed, but what I remember thinking was Oh, well. That’s it.
The world became a clockwork. My arm, slung over the edge, carried a certain mass at a particular angle. The friction of my feet against the side of the skyscraper held a particular and measurable force. Coin’s hands were only hands, its will a faint echo of what it had been only seconds before. Someone had performed Kim’s cantrip.
Coin stepped back, real shock in its expression now. Something metallic banged, and I got an ankle up over the parapet’s edge and hauled for all I was worth. I felt weak, but it was enough. I landed hard on my side just as I heard the first shotgun blast.
Coin’s back was to me now, one hand pointed as it advanced on the green door that had been closed until now. Ex stepped out onto the roof, Eric’s shotgun held before him, and fired twice more. I heard Coin grunt at the impact. I saw the small figure of Kim in the stairwell behind Ex.
“Run!” I tried to shout, but it hardly came out louder than a groan. “He’ll kill you!”
The concussion wasn’t physical, but it was stunning all the same. A low hum like something electrical gathering a charge, and then the blast like a head blow from a brick. The world smelled like an iron skillet left on the burner by mistake. I forced my eyes open.
Ex lay on his back, blood running from his nose, his eyes wild with fear. Kim was no more than a low shape in the doorway. Coin stood over Ex’s fallen body like a punch-drunk boxer who’d put his opponent down for the count. Who’d killed him. The suit jacket had come open, and Coin’s chest was raw hamburger and blood where the shotgun’s load of iron, salt, and silver had struck. It shook its head, trying to orient itself. Ex tried to say something, his jaw working without sound. The sense of a clockwork universe faded as Kim lost consciousness, and I felt my own strength coming back, at least enough that I could do something more than tremble.
Something glittered at Coin’s feet. There in the stone litter of gravel, something shone brass and blackness. Coin was breathing hard. I shifted, getting my weight under me again. Ex tried to raise the shotgun, the barrel making a hushing sound as it dragged across the rooftop. Coin lifted its foot with slow deliberation and slammed down on Ex’s chest. I imagined that I heard ribs snapping.
I launched.
I hit Coin in the small of the back, shoulder first and all my weight and power behind it. It felt like I’d tackled a concrete post, but Coin stumbled. Ex rolled once, from his back onto his belly, the shotgun underneath him now. Coin swung at me; the back of his hand grazing my cheek was enough to knock my head to the side. I dropped, scrabbling in the gravel for the glimmer I’d seen.
My fingers found the bullet, the weird energy of the sigils dry and mobile as a snake. I clenched a fist around it and jumped back. Coin’s rib cage was falling and rising like a bellows. I stayed in a crouch, the bullet in my left hand, my eyes on the enemy.
As long as it breaks skin, we’re fine.
Coin stepped back, arms spread wide and eyes closed. I felt its will gathering like a high wind fu
ll of knives. The shredded flesh of its chest wept blood without drenching it. I had the time it took to draw a breath, and if I failed, we were all dead.
I stepped forward and pressed the bullet to the shotgun wound. Something between my fingers shifted and squirmed. Coin’s eyes opened in shock.
“Tag,” I said. “You’re it.”
Imagine a balloon the size of the world. Touch a pin to it. Coin’s death was that loud and that sudden, and then it was over. The husk of his body fell to the rooftop, took three slow wheezing breaths, and went still. I stood there for what seemed like an hour and wasn’t more than five seconds. Slowly, I crouched down. Coin’s eyes were still moving, looking up at me with horror and despair and then shifting to focus on something in the distance that only it could see. The bullet rested on its ruined sternum, the metal bright and unmarked, the engravings gone. I lay back.
The gravel felt comfortable as a feather bed. When I knew I was going to vomit, I rolled to my side. When I was empty, I rolled back. Far above in the dark sky, an airplane pulsed. There was no sound of traffic. We were too high up for that. There was only the hollow sound of the breeze in my ear, and then unsteady footsteps.
Kim came into view. A streak of blood darkened her cheek. I smiled at her.
“Jayné?” she said. “Are you okay?”
I managed a weak thumbs-up. My voice didn’t seem to be working. She knelt beside me, her hand smoothing back my hair. I had the weird thought that Kim would have been a good mother. A little June Cleaver for my tastes, maybe, but perfect for someone else. There was a scrape, a cough, and a grunted obscenity as Ex started to move. It reminded me of something.
“How?” I managed.
“Your friend, Ex?” Kim said. “He put a GPS tracking device in your backpack. It was how he knew where we were before too.”
I closed my eyes, frowned, opened them again.
“Creepy,” I said.
“Needed to happen,” Ex said. He was sitting up now, his arms around his chest. His face was pale with pain. I raised my hand and pointed a single finger at him.
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