Right then, I knew what I should have done. If I’d copied the data stick before returning it, I could have shown it to Spark. It had all been her brainchild to begin with. Surely she’d be able to figure out what Eddis had broken and fix it.
Just how far could I trust Seana? How much was I willing to gamble on remembered affection and a woman who may have changed in the last seven years. If I made the wrong choice, Spark would suffer far more than I.
At some point, I was going to have to bring up Spark if I wanted Seana to make the assassins stop. But I didn’t want to shatter the regrowing intimacy between us.
Seana ordered up more utensils and some spices in order to cook the vegetables. “You’re being quiet.”
“It’s been a long day.” My evasion was also truth. Parked on a stool in the peaceful safety of Seana’s home, body and mind were starting to feel the effects of all the excitement.
Her gaze held steady. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or what she’d seen on my face. “No question the city has become dangerous.” She returned her attention to the food. “And it will only get worse.”
No question about it, if we didn’t get water soon. “Miroc was always dangerous.”
“Not like this.”
The food she stirred was starting to smell very good. Tangy and sharp and fresh. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been able to afford anything fresh. Even after the sandwiches at Amelia’s, my stomach rumbled. “There’s nothing I can do about Miroc, except help make sure this rain gadget gets up and running. It’s not like there’s anywhere else I can go.”
“But there is.” Her voice was soft. Her words, hesitant. “Here.”
Seven years ago, she’d walked out my life with no tears, no apology, only the reminder that she’d told me from day one her career came first. Her duty to her employer came first. “You left me, remember?”
“I did what I had to do then.” Even now, she didn’t apologize. “This is what I’m free to do now. I’ve missed you, Ash. And you are,” a little smile broke free, “useful.”
This was too much to think about right now. “I owe a lot to Amelia. I couldn’t leave Price & Breckenridge.”
“I would never ask you to. I can’t believe you’d think I’d ask you to abandon your employer. All I’m saying is, this could be the home you return back to.”
Way too much. Maybe for her as well. She turned away to summon a colander and busied herself setting the food out on plates.
It tasted amazing. We sat across from each other at the counter, both of us hyper-focused on the act of chasing the pasta and veggies onto forks. This food, the casual way she’d had me draw the water, the utter luxury of our surroundings, I couldn’t deny the temptation of it.
I’d loved Seana. I still loved Seana. And when she looked up at me, her ice-gray eyes intense and said, “Stay the night. What’s left of it,” that was too much.
“Sure,” I answered. Like she’d asked if I wanted any salt.
Seana nodded and returned to eating.
#
After the Abandon, after the riots, I lost myself. My mind went to sleep when my body was broken, and it never woke all the way back up. I’d been moving through a hazy world, half-aware and numb and I hadn’t known it at all until now, this moment, as I followed Seana up her stairs and realized just how much I wanted her.
Not just her, if I was to be honest with myself. I wanted the world as it was back when we’d been together. I wanted my life as it had been. But that, I couldn’t have. The Thirteen had found new and better toys somewhere else in the universe and had left us crying in the sand on our dying world.
I would never have the rest, but at this moment, I could have her. And in the cool, quiet air of the Crescent, where flowers still grew and water still flowed, I could forget about the city below.
At the top of the stairs, I grabbed Seana’s wrist and pulled her to me. She allowed me a brief kiss, her lips cool and familiar against mine, then twisted out of my arms. “Come along, Ash.”
I came along. To the bedroom, where Seana pulled off her jacket and lay it over the arm of a chair, then began unbuttoning her shirt, as efficient in this as she was with everything else in her life.
I remembered. I remembered how I could make her shiver with a touch along her spine where her shirt joined her jacket. I remembered the fit of her arms around my shoulders as I scooped her up and carried her to the bed. I remembered the feel of her lean body against mine.
We humans were the first race, and when it came to sex, we served as the blueprint when the other gods created the rest. It was something I’d worried about, our first time. Just how alien were the Jansynians? Turned out, in bed, not very. Not physically, at least.
Seana made love like she did everything else—she offered no quarter, accepted nothing short of perfection. We rolled back and forth, a mostly good-natured struggle for who got to be on top. This time, I surrendered. I just wanted—
I wanted to forget. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted to find myself.
I wanted to close my eyes and to open them again on a world that wasn’t broken. I wanted to be that young man, seven years ago, whose biggest worries were his quarterly performance review and whether or not his workaholic girlfriend was going to take the weekend off.
That young man who had lived with his head in the sand. No different from the countless citizens of Miroc who trudged through their days, clinging to every familiar habit they could, waiting for the Thirteen to miraculously return.
Seana’s hand stroked my cheek, and I opened my eyes. Her finger moved down, traced the lines of my scars. I’d never seen such a tender look on her face.
The moment passed as waves of pleasure engulfed us both.
After, we lay alongside each other, our only point of contact her hand resting on my chest. It felt possessive, much more familiar than the earlier open affection.
So easy to lose myself like this. To take Seana up on her offer, to give in to the security and comfort she offered. How much did Seana know about the city from which she offered rescue? “Amelia says Miroc doesn’t have much time left.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Seana spoke with calm. “We are aware of the situation below.”
“What do you think will happen?”
Seana leaned up on her elbows, serious now. “If the satellite can’t be fixed? I expect word will get out. The city council can’t keep the water shortage secret forever. At which point you’ll see chaos. Rioting, looting, burning—worse than after the Abandon, I would imagine. The city will tear itself apart. And then it will die.”
Her face softened to something like regret. “It’s a terrible thing, but it isn’t just happening in Miroc. I can tell you that, Ash—it’s all over the world. Miroc may be the worst. It was never a natural city. Elsewhere—the whole world….” She sighed. “No one has the resources to save it.”
Seana herself was just another of the people waiting. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I took her hand, kissed her fingers. “Bring us the rain. Buy us some time.”
“Time. Of course.” Her eyes had gone unreadable again. She lay back down, but continued to watch me. The sun would be coming up soon, but she didn’t seem at all sleepy.
“Do you miss them?” she asked. My confusion must have shown. “The gods,” she clarified. “You were a priest. It must be…lonely?”
She’d never before wanted to know about my relationship with Kaifail. A little talk about the end of the world, and suddenly everyone discovers a spiritual side, I suppose. “I never had that kind of relationship with Kaifail. None of us did. He didn’t involve himself with us.”
The party line. So easy to say. And such bullshit. “We dealt with the Abandon fine because we didn’t lose anything. And that was for the best, really. I knew priests from the other churches. Churches where their god took an active interest.” I thought of Iris at the mural. “They were lost when the Abandon happened. Heartbroken. I can’t imagine what it was li
ke.”
I squeezed her hand, not for her comfort, but my own. I stared up at the ceiling as the resentment I was always fighting to greater or lesser success bubbled up inside me. “I guess I did feel…all this time, we felt so independent, so proud of ourselves. We didn’t need Kaifail holding our hand, whispering in our ear. We were grown-ups.
“But all along, we—all of us—assumed that if we did need him, if something truly awful happened, that he’d be there. That he’d help us. That if things ever got really terrible, that he’d save us.”
Seana pulled her hand free, ran a finger down my cheek. “Maybe he wanted to. Something I’ve always regretted—what I never said to you. I promised myself if we ever crossed paths again—” She looked away, and then got up out of bed. Another touchpad, another panel, and she had a fresh stack of clothes. “I have work I need to get to. Stay and sleep, if you like.”
Just like old times. I didn’t know if this was true of all Jansynians, but Seana could and would go days without sleep once her mind was fixated on an important project. I envied that. “I think I will grab a nap before I head out.”
She nodded. She hadn’t once looked at me since she’d gotten out of bed. “Come back tonight, if you can. If your business allows it.” She didn’t wait for my answer, heading out of the room still half-dressed.
I could have called after her. It wasn’t like there were walls between us. But I respected her need for escape. And, to be honest, I was exhausted.
I dug my wireless out of my pants and set the alarm for two hours from now. All it took was to close my eyes and I was asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
City on Fire
Exhausted as I was, I didn’t sleep well. Strange, restless dreams chased me. Seana and Micah hunted by Syed, who was both man and shadow all at once. I tried to help them, tried to save them, but we were out in the desert and I couldn’t breathe it was so hot and I wanted water—so badly wanted water.
I woke up sweaty and disoriented, clawing at my handset a long while before I could figure out how to stop the noise coming from it. Slowly, I remembered where I was and how I got here.
I went into the bathroom, and splashed water on my face. Then found myself staring at the sleek black shower stall. As long as I was here, how could I resist? Showers were a luxury I hadn’t known in a long time, since they drove my water bill higher than my monthly salary.
The touchpad in the shower took me a minute to figure out, but after that I was rewarded with the magnificent wonder of warm water all over my skin. Talk about reminders of a better time. This was pure, sensual bliss.
It woke me up better than the alarm had and relaxed me enough my brain kicked into gear. I would have loved another few hours of sleep, but there was too much to do, too much to think about.
The world was getting worse, not better. And maybe—just maybe—I could stop that. Not the ineffective fumblings that got me sent to the hospital last time, but real, substantive change for the better. All the pieces lay in front of me if I could get my head out of my ass long enough to figure out how to put them together.
I stepped out of the shower, refreshed and ready, when my wireless chimed—Amelia calling. As I reached for it on the bedside table, I noticed what else lay beside it.
The data stick. With all the information about the satellite project. Seana must have laid it here last night when she undressed. I grabbed it and slipped it in my pocket as I answered Amelia’s call.
“Are you watching the news feed?” Amelia asked in a flat voice without so much as a hello.
“Hold on.” I fumbled at the screen embedded in Seana’s wall across from the bed. It responded to my touch, and I dug through menus until I found what I was looking for.
Once I would have had to ask Amelia which feed she meant. These days, the only news we got—and the only news that mattered—was the city channel. I touched that option and Seana’s screen filled with images of thick, black smoke.
The camera pulled back and a reporter’s voice identified the scene. “The library at Dorian University is the latest target in the series of attacks that have shattered the morning quiet.”
The room suddenly felt colder. I couldn’t catch my breath. “What is this?”
Amelia’s voice in my ear drowned out the reporter’s litany of the damages. “Terrorists. Connected to the protesters I told you about before. They want the city to open up the reservoir and release the last of Miroc’s water reserves.”
On the screen, a map flashed up of all the attacks that had happened this morning. It looked familiar, but it took my stunned mind several seconds to figure out why. This same pattern—I’d seen it in Amelia’s office just yesterday—the work for another client. “You knew about this!”
“We knew it was coming; we just didn’t know how soon.”
For the second time in as many days, I was reminded just how little I actually knew about my employer. “Who’s we?”
Amelia ignored the question. “Listen to me. This highlights the urgency of getting that Desavris satellite to work. Tell me where you are with Seana.”
“I don’t think Seana’s the person I need to talk to.” I didn’t say any more. I couldn’t. Not here. Even if the wireless wasn’t being monitored, I couldn’t assume a lack of surveillance just because I was in the director’s own suite.
Fortunately, Amelia knew what she was doing. Probably even better than I did. She didn’t ask what I planned to do. Although honestly, she probably didn’t need to. “Make it your priority,” she said.
Image after image of devastation flashed by on the screen. Dorian library. The southside market. A public school. The martial academy. A shipping depot not far from the Crescent. Fire and rubble, but it didn’t look like any casualties were being reported. In fact, all these were building that had pretty much fallen to neglect as the city struggled to survive. “This was a warning shot, wasn’t it.”
“Very good, Ash.”
Another live shot of the still-burning library. I’d spent quite a lot of time there in the old days, but after the destruction of the churches, my sense of outrage had gone numb. “So what’s next?”
Amelia didn’t answer immediately and I reached up to turn off the news feed as the scene shifted to the reporter talking with people on the streets. I didn’t need to hear witness accounts. I’d witnessed plenty first hand.
“You just focus on your job.” Amelia’s words came out clear in the suddenly silent room. “Let me worry about mine.”
A dismissal. Except I had one more question. “How’s Iris doing?”
That evoked a smile I could hear. “She’s up and talking. Annoyed I’m making her stay in bed. I don’t imagine I’ll be able to keep her off her feet long.”
Relief went a long way to easing the tension the attacks on the city had evoked. “Say hi for me.”
“Say hi yourself. I want you back here to report this afternoon.”
She hung up on my affirmative.
#
Miroc was on fire. As I rode the lift down from the safety of Desavris, I had a clear view of smoke rising from five still-burning buildings and a number of smudgy dark clouds that marked fires recently extinguished. I waited to feel the panic, the suffocating chill I’d woken to for months after the riots that had hospitalized me. But time, it seemed, truly did bring healing, and a different emotion was rising within me. A clear, hot anger.
Terrorists, Amelia had said. And what better weapon than fire to bring terror to a city with no water?
I fished the security disc out of my bag and pressed it against my collarbone, where it would be easy to conceal under clothes. Unnecessary, as it turned out. The Jansynian man at the security checkpoint greeted me without scanning it. “Mr. Drake.”
Probably not a lot of humans going in and out on Seana’s say-so. “I need to borrow a vehicle.”
“How large?” he asked without arguing.
I fought to hide my surprise. This had been a gamble. I’d
expected to have to throw Seana’s name around and pray she didn’t mind. But this was the Crescent, after all. The weight of Seana’s authority was unspoken and assumed. It would have been graceless to force me to say it.
“I’d prefer something small and mobile. The streets today are going to be—”
“Yes,” he cut me off. “Wait here, please.”
Minutes later, a woman on a sleek black cycle pulled up alongside the checkpoint. She slid a tiny card out from its handlebars, which the guard inside ran through his computer, then handed to me. “It’s keyed to your security disc and fully charged. It should suit your needs.”
“Thanks.” The woman hovered as I slid the card back into the cycle’s control panel and swung my leg over. As I settled in the seat, the engine came to life—a soft, humming vibration I could feel all through my body. I looked around for anything resembling an accelerator.
“It responds to your body-weight,” the woman said. “Lean forward to accelerate. Back to slow. It’s sensitive, so don’t overdo. The cycle will correct itself in emergency situations.”
I lifted my heels to the footrests and felt the cycle find its balance without my help. I took hold of the handgrips and leaned in. The bike zoomed forward towards the security fence. I pulled back. It screeched to a stop just short of collision.
I glanced back at the Jansynian woman, but she retained that perfect expressionlessness of which the Jansynians were so adept. The real question was, what would Seana hear about this?
I aimed myself at the gate and leaned forward again. Sensitive was an understatement. It was like the bike could read my mind. If I wanted to go slow, just thinking about forward gave the cycle enough cues to move. And if I really hunched down, we moved so fast it was almost like flying.
I could get used to this.
I raced through empty streets of blowing sand, until I’d gotten well out of range of any visual surveillance from the Crescent. I pulled over to the half-buried sidewalk, wished for some shade from the mid-morning sun, but miracles were out of the question these days.
City of Burning Shadows (Apocrypha: The Dying World) Page 13
