“Trick,” said a low, rippling voice from the largest aqueous trap. “Lie.”
“No,” Molly said. “Not a lie.”
She moved closer, examining the trap. There was a prominent valve on one side that seemed promising. She tried it first with her bare hands, then pulled the wrench from her belt and stuck its handle through the spokes of the valve, using it for leverage. It turned slowly until the top of the trap opened with a pop. She lifted the lid off and set it down quietly.
Nothing came out of the open trap. She peered over the side and saw something dark and glimmering pooled at the bottom. It flowed away from her, bunching against the far side of the trap. Molly could hear a hiss where it touched the iron sides.
“See? No lie. You can go or stay. You should know the workers here are wearing iron though. It’ll be dangerous to fight.”
She turned toward the other traps. She started at the top of the pile and worked her way down, releasing each spirit in turn. Several burst out immediately when she gave them a path. After the first few had fled, she heard a rushing behind her and turned to find the aqueous spirit sitting at the edge of the cargo area. It looked like a crested wave almost as tall as her. The water wasn’t blue, but black, speckled with small points of light like reflected stars. Its liquid body rippled slightly, and the crest of the wave turned toward her.
“We go?”
“That’s up to you.” She continued through the rest of the traps.
When she released the rumbling terric spirit, it leapt from its trap, hitting her in the chest and knocking her backward. Its legs, crystalline and jagged, dug into her ribs, and she whimpered. It seemed to be made up almost completely of legs. It looked down at her with multifaceted eyes and raised jagged crystal claws over her head. It paused, looked toward the open back of the truck, then leapt away, colliding with the door.
She heard a cry of alarm from outside and scrambled to her feet. “Go, go!” she hissed at the spirits still nearby, and she quickly to opened the rest of the traps. Just as the last spirit flew free—a silver dragonfly with human eyes, wings flapping weakly—she heard a bang from outside. She jumped out of the truck.
The facility had been thrown into chaos. The two laborers who had been unloading the truck were fending off the crystalline terric spirit with empty traps. Even the iron didn’t seem to dissuade it. The sanatorium patients followed placidly behind shouting workers, who were shoving them through the narrow doors. The tall woman was wrestling with a canister, and there was already a glimmer of iron powder in the air around her.
Most of the spirits who could fly had fled to the upper reaches of the room, where the iron powder wouldn’t reach them. They hid inside tangles of pipes and walkways—leftovers from the building’s previous life as a genuine factory, it seemed. Ariel dropped down beside her. “Are you sure this was the best course of action, Molly?”
“The best I could think of anyway. I think they’re trying to make more spirit-touched people, but really they’re just loosing confused spirits on helpless people. Can you do something about the woman firing off the iron powder while I get the doors?”
“I can certainly try,” Ariel said. She flew back up to the ceiling directly above the woman and began battering one of the walkways with strong winds. It trembled and shook, its moorings coming loose from the ceiling.
Molly didn’t wait to see if Ariel’s plan worked. Instead, she turned and began running. Everyone was too distracted to take any notice of her as she hurried across the room to the front door. She threw the deadbolt and kicked the door open. Her father and brothers shielded their eyes against the light that suddenly flooded out at them.
“What’s happening, Moll? We heard shouting,” her father said.
“I released a lot of spirits.”
“I thought we were going for quiet,” Rory said.
“I had to do something. Croyden’s here, and they’re going to kill him.”
“Croyden?” her father said, stepping forward. “Where?”
“In one of the little cells, but he’s drugged. We have to get all these spirits and people out.”
“I count at least a dozen people,” Kiernan said. “And is that iron they’re wearing?”
“Two more behind the truck,” Molly added.
“So how the heck do we stop them?” Rory asked.
“The cells,” Molly said. “They’ve been locking people in those cells. Maybe we can do the same to them.”
There was a crash, and Molly turned to see the wreckage of a walkway splayed across the floor. The tall woman was nearby, unhurt, but she no longer had the iron powder canisters in her hands.
Her father nodded. “Let’s get to it. Boys, you take the five on the left. Moll, we’ll be on the right. Be careful, everyone!”
He started running, and Molly had to hurry to keep up. The nearest two workers were busily stuffing patients into cells while being harried by the silver dragonfly Molly had seen. Despite its small size, it was making quite a nuisance of itself, rushing in at the workers’ unprotected faces, blinding them and pushing them back with puffs of silver-blue wind. One of the workers moved away from the patients and raised iron-plated gloves to try to catch the spirit.
He was so focused on the dragonfly that he didn’t see Molly’s father, who barreled into him and sent him flying backward through the open door of the cell. The patients inside fell, too addled to catch themselves, and the other worker stumbled back.
“Hey—” she said feebly before a burst of wind from Molly sent her into a cell after her colleague. Her father rushed into the cell and pulled two patients out by their shirtfronts, while Molly grabbed the door and slammed it closed.
“Molly Stout!” a booming voice shouted, and Molly turned to see the tall woman glaring at her across the wreckage of the walkway. “It’s Molly Stout! To the weapons, everyone!”
Rory and Kiernan had managed to overpower another of the workers, but the rest turned from their struggles and ran for the back of the factory, where lines of lockers stood.
“Remember, do not kill the girl! Arkwright wants her!”
Ariel flew in from across the room and bowled several of the workers over with a gust that swept the ground, but she could not stop them all. They reached the lockers and threw them open, grabbing guns that glimmered red with igneous energy. The tall woman took the first gun and leveled it at Molly’s father.
“Stop now, or he dies!” she shouted.
Molly and her father froze.
“Molly, the lockers!” her father hissed at her side.
“What? What about them?”
“They’re metal!”
“So what does—”
“METAL CONDUCTS ELECTRICITY!” he shouted at her.
“Oh. Oh!” She planted her feet and looked inside for her anger. Given what she had just seen, it wasn’t hard to find.
Lightning arced from her and hit the lockers, spreading across their metal surfaces. The workers who had been gathering weapons were blown back to lie steaming on the floor. The tall woman turned toward the sound, and as soon as her weapon moved, Kiernan began running. The tall woman saw him and brought her gun back around. She pulled the trigger when Kiernan was only a few feet away, and a flare of fire hit him in the chest. He screamed, and his legs buckled. He lay sprawled at the woman’s feet.
Molly’s father was shouting, and Molly thought she might be too, but she couldn’t hear it over the sudden ringing in her ears. She and her father were sprinting, but they wouldn’t reach Kiernan in time. Molly tried to gather lightning, wind, but the ringing cut through her brain, scattering her thoughts before she could form them. All she could do was run.
She saw the weapon rise again, pointed at her brother’s face. He was on fire now. She saw the woman tighten her finger on the trigger.
Then there was a crack, and Molly gasped. But the sound hadn’t come from the gun. There was something clear and shining climbing the wall behind the woman. Is that ice?
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The ice climbed halfway up the wall, and then let out a thump. The ice and the wall both burst, sending shards of frozen concrete out across the ground. The tall woman flinched, her finger sliding from the trigger, and in that moment Molly’s father reached her and punched her on the jaw. She fell, jelly-limbed, across the wreckage of the wall.
Molly ran to her brother, batting at the flames on his chest. She put them out quickly, but his blackened skin still smoked. “Is he okay?”
“Okay? No,” her father said. “But still breathing.”
Another sheet of ice climbed the wall behind them, cracking it apart. The roof groaned. Molly spotted the strange aqueous spirit near the back wall. It seemed to be directing the ice.
Rory was suddenly beside them, holding several fragments of ice in his arms. “Here. Will these help?”
Their father took the ice and spread it over Kiernan’s chest. Kiernan gasped and shuddered, his eyes flickering open and closed.
With a thump another piece of the wall collapsed, and fragments of pipe rained down around them from the ceiling. Powdered concrete drifted through the air.
“This place is going to collapse,” Molly said. “I asked the spirits to help shut this place down, and I think one of them took me literally. We have to get out of here. We have to get everyone out of here.”
Her father nodded. “Molly, Rory, you get the others out. I’ve got Kier.”
“Are you sure? He’s—”
“Don’t bloody talk! GO!” he roared, heaving a whimpering Kiernan into his arms.
Molly stood, turning toward the tall woman, who was still unconscious in the wreckage. She knelt down and found a set of keys on her belt. She took them and ran back to the cells.
She went to Croyden’s first, trying three keys before she found the right one for the small cell. Croyden sat on the floor inside, his mechanical leg stuck out at an odd angle. Rory grabbed the keys from her hand.
“Croyden!” Molly shouted. “You have to leave!”
“Molly?” he muttered. “But you’re not here.”
“Of course I am, you idiot. Now get up.” She bent down and slid her head under his arm, trying to lift him. This leg really does weigh a ton.
“No, no. They said they killed you.”
“Still alive, Croyden.” She heard another wall crash down. “But I won’t be if you don’t move.”
She finally got him upright, and he shuffled halfheartedly forward. When they emerged from the cell, she saw a crowd of white-clad men and women being ushered out the front door by Rory. Ariel was helping, pushing the slow ones along with gusts of wind.
“Ariel!” Molly called, and the spirit flew to her side. “Can you carry him? He can’t move himself with his leg.”
“I believe I can, as long as his leg contains no iron.” She swept in around Croyden, and his feet lifted slightly off the ground. His head lolled toward Molly, and he looked at her blearily. “I can take him,” Ariel said. “You gather the rest.”
“Molly?” Croyden muttered sleepily. “They said they killed you.” And then he was carried forward to join the crowd.
Molly snatched the keys back from Rory and moved to the cells, freeing the patients and sending them shuffling slowly toward the door. As the last of them neared the exit, the final piece of the back wall caved in under the aqueous spirit’s ice, and a corner of the roof came down with it, narrowly missing the tall woman.
Molly turned to the last cell, the one containing the workers. She unlocked the door and opened it cautiously. “Are we going to fight, or are you going to get out of here?” she asked them. Without a word they rushed past her and out through the collapsed back wall, slipping on the ice.
The spirits had gone, save for the aqueous one still dismantling the building. The patients were out, and Rory was at the door. The ceiling was bent and cracked, looking like it would collapse at any moment. Other than Molly and the spirit, there was only one person left in the building: the tall woman.
Molly scowled. The thought of helping her made Molly’s stomach clench. Still, the building was going to come down on her, and that thought was even worse.
She ran across the room. “You’ve done enough!” she shouted to the spirit as she ran. “Get out before it comes down!” The spirit flowed across the rubble of the walls toward the outside. Molly reached the woman and bent to try to pull her up, but she and her iron suit were far too heavy to lift. Molly grabbed her heels and started pulling.
“You probably won’t…feel very good…when you wake up,” Molly said, pulling the woman across the rubble with quick tugs, watching her head bang against the concrete and ice. “But at least…you’ll wake up.” They moved slowly, one tug at a time, the ceiling bowing and cracking above them.
Da is going to think I’m crazy, risking my neck for her, Molly thought. She pulled the woman up and over a huge chunk of concrete. What am I doing? The shoulder of the iron-laced suit caught on a corner, and Molly tugged until the straps broke and it came off. She made her choices. She put herself here. Another tug. They were almost clear now. I’m going to get myself killed. With a groan, part of a wall fell across the truck that had brought Molly inside, crushing it. She risked a glance up and saw the night sky through cracks opening in the ceiling. Oh hell. She braced her feet, tucked the woman’s legs under her arms and heaved, skittering back as fast as she could. Concrete smashed down just beyond the woman as they slid out into the road behind the building, and Molly tripped and fell. Dust billowed out of the collapsing building, rolling over them and blocking out the world as Molly lay, face pressed to the cobblestones, breathing hard.
“Well,” she whispered to herself, “no one died. I think.”
“The night’s young yet,” a soft voice replied through the clouds of dust.
FIFTEEN
Molly scrambled away on all fours, moving until she hit the wall of the building opposite. As the dust began to settle, she saw a man walking toward her. He was in a dark coat that glistened oddly under the streetlights. He wore some kind of hood or helmet—something black and smooth that hugged the curves of his face, open only at the eyes and mouth. But she knew him instantly.
“Howarth,” she whispered.
“Come quietly now. You’ve done enough damage for one night.” He walked toward her with a calm assurance that reminded her of Arkwright. The black airship hovered above them. There were other figures descending from it, sliding down long lines to the ground around her.
Took too long. She pushed herself to her feet against the wall. She called on the lightning and sent it at Howarth. It struck his arm.
He didn’t even flinch. “Rubberized clothes, grounded boots,” he said, walking forward. “You can’t catch us off guard anymore.” He was within a few feet of her now, and not stopping. He had some sort of blade in his other hand.
“I don’t want to fight you,” she said.
“Well, that makes two of us,” he said. “But in my experience, you’re not one to come quietly, so I’m not—”
Molly brought the wind in under her as she jumped. It seemed harder than usual to direct, as if it didn’t want to linger, but the gust took her up over his head and to the top of the building beside them. As she cleared the lip of the building, she pushed the wind away and let herself fall, rolling across the roof and stopping near the far end.
There was a thump behind her, and she turned to find two Disposal agents alighting on the roof. “How did—” she began, and then Howarth appeared over the edge of the building, rising lightly into the air and landing in front of her. Do they have flitters? No, they’re not using the wind.
She braced herself and gathered the winds again, but Howarth made a cutting gesture. Something at the tips of his fingers sparked, and the winds fractured and vanished around her. “I told you,” he said. “We know your tricks.”
She looked over the edge of the building at the street far below. Midway down she could see a scaffold. The spirit tricks won’t work. M
aybe I should try some of my human tricks. The agents were rushing forward now. Molly ducked under one of their grasping arms and leapt backward.
The fall was far enough to hurt, but she landed well, legs folding and bringing her down into a forward roll to soften the impact. She’d made countless jumps like that aboard the Legerdemain. But the deck of the airship had been much sturdier than the scaffold. A moment after she landed, it creaked beneath her and began to tip sideways. Molly scrambled to the edge and held on as it fell, leaping clear at the last moment and coming to rest on the cold cobblestones.
She groaned and forced herself to her feet. The agents were still coming, gliding through the air toward her without using wind. Molly turned and ran, twisting and turning through alleys until the sound of their heavy boots faded behind her. To her right she saw a half-open loading-bay door, and she ducked inside, crouching down amid moldering crates. She was breathing so hard it was almost deafening. She forced her lungs to slow, sipping air through pursed lips.
She heard a thump outside. “Damn it.” It was Howarth’s voice. “Anyone see her?”
“No eyes on her, sir. She’s gone,” another voice shouted back.
“Bloody hell. Even with the new gear.”
There was a series of thumps as more boots touched down. “We expected the lightning and the wind, sir. Didn’t expect her to jump off a building.”
“And her family?”
“Gone. Orders were to focus resources on the girl.”
“All right then. Keep to it. Pair off, spiral search pattern. If you don’t find her in ten, back aboard the Black Guard.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Molly heard a hum and boots scuffing against the ground. She sank back farther, staying there even after all sound had faded. She counted slowly to herself until she reached one hundred before risking a look out the door. No one was there.
She peered farther out, then crawled into the alley. Between the hulking factories she could just make out the aft section of the airship, dark and ominous. The silhouette of an agent rose toward the ship, cutting through the winds and leaving them in tatters behind. They’ve got something that stops the wind. They must be flying using gravitics, just like their airship.
Terra Nova Page 17
