“If you’re lucky,” said Danny, hugging her. “If you are blessed.”
Except the marks were gone now, weren’t they? Gone, like Adalia. Why was that name so familiar? So close to her heart, yet so far away? She stopped, then pulled up her shirt to see her smooth skin, unmarked by the bearing of a child.
Remember.
She hadn’t had a child, had she? “Choler?”
“Yes, my love?” He came to stand close to her, a strong arm holding her up.
“Choler, did we have a baby?” Danny felt so confused, and her head was beginning to hurt, hurt so bad it felt like something was trying to force its way out.
Remember.
“No, my love. I wanted one, you know this, but you never did. You said you … well, it’s not important. Surely you remember?” His eyes, so full of concern, of care. How could she not remember not wanting his child?
A sharp stab of pain hit behind her eyes, and she cried out, falling—
REMEMBER.
—to the ground. Her breath came faster now, she panted with exertion, but she didn’t know why—
By the moon.
—because she should be in love, she should be relaxed, shouldn’t she? She clenched her head in her hands, fingers raking against her scalp, drawing—
By the stars.
—blood. The bright copper smell hit her, and she remembered running through the night, moon and stars wheeling overhead an Earth not yet cool. The game was ahead of them, running for life, and this, this was it, the test of it all. To hunt, to earn your right to stand astride the ground and howl your victory to the heavens, to the Universe that watched it all.
Remember your Pack.
“Are you all right?” Choler’s voice was liquid honey, but the pain pushed it aside and she didn’t answer. Such pain, she had not felt even this much in the joy of the birth of her little girl, her baby, her Adalia—
Remember. Remember. REMEMBER YOUR CUB. He cannot take her from us.
—who was so very small in her arms. Danny had held her in the hospital, whispering against Adalia’s head that it’ll be okay, Daddy’s gone but I’m here, I promise I won’t ever leave and yet she had done worse than leave. She had forgotten.
Danny screamed, and screamed, and screamed, then stood up, the sunlight falling away from her, leaving the cold and dark of Trump Tower. She stood with Choler in a luxury room, the squalor of it vile — half empty bottles of liquor cast aside, uneaten food lying on plates and trays on every surface. Her head was going to explode, the memories bursting back out, washing over her. Some warning, some—
Rise. Danger. FIGHT.
—sense making her see the knife that Choler held, that tiny sliver of agony that he was bringing towards her face. She snarled, grabbing Choler’s knife hand. Her other hand she brought round in—
No claws. This body is so weak. Change, my sister.
—a fist, smashing the bones in Choler’s arm again and again. The man was thrashing in her grip, the pain must have been—
He will litter this world with the empty hearts of the lost.
—exquisite. It made her hit harder, and faster. Danny pulled him in close to her, breathed in the stench of him, then lifted him off the ground, arm straight out in front of her like she was holding up a shirt she was considering wearing. The knife finally tumbled to the carpet, the hateful silver twinkling, catching stray light as it fell.
“By the moon and the stars that I hunt by,” said Danny, “I remember.”
“We are in love,” said Choler, and Danny felt the pull of it.
She shook him like a doll. “No,” she said. “You are a sickness. You tried to take my little girl from me.”
“She is your weakness,” said Choler.
“She is my strength,” said Danny. She pulled the man close enough to kiss, saw the madness in his eyes, and adjusted her grip. Her free hand grabbed Choler’s other arm. Holding both of his arms just below the shoulders, she put a foot against his chest, and braced herself.
“She will—” but his words choked into a scream as she started to pull. She leaned back into it, her teeth clenching into a snarl. Choler screamed, and screamed, until one of his arms gave with a wet tear, a shower of red spraying across the expensive carpet, the drapes, her face. Pieces of Choler rained to the ground with the sound of a wet mop hitting linoleum. Danny stumbled back, letting his body fall.
Now we hunt.
“Yes,” she said, and licked her lips, tasting copper. She caught a glimpse of herself in a broken mirror against the wall. Her eyes were burning yellow, so bright, above the red of Choler’s blood. “We are the Night.” She raised a hand to her face, touching the blood, licking it off her fingers. A shiver went through her at the taste, the sticky red sweet she hadn’t glutted on in such a long, long time. She turned those bright eyes to Choler’s body, and felt a terrible hunger.
We are the Night.
CHAPTER FIFTY
They’d managed to climb another few floors up through the dark tower, but the smell of fire had drawn them out of the stairwell. John had said we should just walk the fuck on by and Rex had said and that’s how a fire will kill us all because they go up, don’t you know anything and Sky had just pushed the door open and left them to it.
She looked down another empty corridor — everything in this place looks the same — except this one wasn’t the same. Sure, yeah, it looked the same, down to the identical beautiful carpet and tacky artwork. The difference was the smoke blooming like a corrupt flower from down the end. Dark and thick, like someone was burning tires. It didn’t smell like tires, it smelled like potpourri, and that’s when Sky knew it was all wrong.
Because, if she knew anything at all, it was that potpourri was a great lie, one of those told to children as they grew up like Santa’s real or that quarter came from the Tooth Fairy or free Wi-Fi if you dine here. Sky had seen her share of potpourri, usually in a bowl, and she’d always thought, why the hell would you put a bunch of dead plants in a bowl.
Unless you were making soup.
If this fire smelled like potpourri, like potpourri was supposed to, then it was another great lie.
The door to the stairwell creaked open behind her. “Baby?” John came up beside her, took her hand. She leaned into the closeness of him. “I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”
“Is that because you were spending so much time arguing with Rex that you forgot about me?” Sky looked at him, deadpan.
John’s face went through twenty different emotions before settling on the not-quite-Miles-Megawatt-Smile that she loved. The honest one, the one just for her. “Nice,” he said. “Truth be told—”
“Truth be told,” said Rex, “that’s a fire.”
“Smells like flowers,” said John.
“I’ll admit, that’s unusual,” said Rex.
“How unusual,” said Sky, “on a scale of one to ten?”
“Maybe a twelve,” said Rex. “I was called to this fire a while back, right? It was—”
“Is this a long story?” said John. “Because, fire.”
Rex sighed. “So, I was called to this fire a while back, place called Blake Garden. Heard of it?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who gardens?” said John.
“UC Berkeley, right?” said Sky.
“Do I look,” said John, “like the kind of guy who went to college?”
“So,” said Rex, pushing on, “there’s this little cottage garden there.”
“What’s it called?” said John.
“It’s called the Cottage Garden,” said Rex. “Did you want this to be a long or a short story?”
“I want it to be an accurate story,” said John. “You started it.”
“Made me want to take a few more classes,” said Rex. “You get in a place like that with summer fashions, and…” He looked at Sky, then swallowed.
“I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about,” said John.
“I think you shoul
d stick to the main points,” said Sky, glaring at John, “because, fire.”
“Speaking of,” said John, “shouldn’t you be getting an extinguisher and rushing up there to put that fire out, old man?”
“Two things,” said Rex.
“Shoot,” said John.
“First up, do you see any extinguishers?” Rex pointed at the walls. “Nice wallpaper, sure, but no extinguishers. New hotels, they’ve got the fire systems all built in.”
“I saw a fire axe in the stairwell,” said John.
“Those are good for axing open the stairwell doors,” said Rex. “They’re not real good at putting out fires. You can’t just cut a fire down.”
“So,” said Sky, looking at the smoke again. “Second thing?”
“I’m retired,” said Rex. “As you pointed out, I’m an old man.”
Sky snorted. “UC Berkeley,” she prompted.
“Some kid had decided to start a fire,” said Rex. “Weed, or something. I don’t know.”
“Seems plausible,” said Sky, “but as they’re students they pretty much all major in drug discovery so it could have been anything.”
“He … the student, that is … started the fire in this cottage garden. I don’t think he meant to, it’s this little place full of cottage crap. You know. Herbs. Roses.” Rex gestured vaguely with his hands. “Flowers and shit. I don’t know. Anyway, didn’t smell anything like that,” he said, pointing at the smoke. “Just smelled like dead plants burning. Not air freshener.”
“I don’t get the link,” said John. “Cottage garden, check. But—”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” said Rex, “it’s because potpourri is made of spices and rose petals and other crap like that.”
“Gotcha,” said John, but he was grinning. Sky held his hand a little tighter. “So what we going to do about this fire?”
“You,” said Rex, “are going to get a fire axe from the stairwell.”
“Cool,” said John. “What for? I thought that you couldn’t put out a fire with an axe.”
“You can put out a fire starter with an axe,” said Rex.
“On it,” said John, giving her hand a quick squeeze before detaching himself from her. “This day just gets better.”
Sky stood, Rex at her side, and watched John walk back the way they’d come. The old man spoke up. “Nothing much gets him down, does it?”
“Not much,” said Sky. She knew her voice had gone soft, couldn’t help herself. Didn’t want to.
“That’s got to be kind of annoying,” said Rex, pretending not to notice.
“It’s why I love him,” said Sky.
“I wondered,” said Rex, “because of all the other stuff that comes along for the ride.”
“That,” said Sky, as the heavy stairwell door shunked shut behind John, “is just John Miles being John Miles. I’d sooner try to talk a hurricane down than change any of that.”
“You’re a special woman,” said Rex. “Look me up if he dies at the end of this.”
Sky laughed. “God loves a trier, Rex. God loves a trier.”
John came back through the stairwell door after only a moment, jogging back towards them with a bright red fire axe in his hands. “These things are heavy,” he said.
“They’re not for show, that’s for sure,” said Rex. “Now, son, let’s go find us a fire.”
∙ • ● • ∙
Sky reached out for the door handle. They were in the thick of the smoke, but it wasn’t hard to breathe and it didn’t sting her eyes. Rex reached out for her arm, stopping her from touching the handle.
“Two things,” he said.
“Okay,” said Sky.
“First,” said Rex, “handle could be hot. Don’t grab that with your bare hands unless you want to smell cooking bacon.”
Sky pulled her hand back. “What’s the second thing?”
“If there’s a fire in there—”
“Where there’s smoke,” said John, “there’s fire.”
“If there’s a fire in there,” said Rex, “and it’s just smoking low, a bit ol’ gust of fresh air can set it off.”
“Bigger fire?” said Sky.
“Explosion,” said Rex. “Called a backdraft.”
“Like the movie?” said John.
“That was a terrible movie,” said Rex. “But sure, like that.”
“Got it,” said John.
“What movie?” said Sky.
“There’s these two brothers,” said John, “and they—”
“Fire,” said Rex.
“Right,” said John. “So, how do we get the door open?”
The handle clicked, the door easing open a crack. John dropped the axe, tackling Sky and taking her to the ground as he shielded her with his body. She felt all the air go out of her lungs with an oomph, and then—
Nothing. Nothing at all.
“Son,” said Rex, “son, help the lady up.”
John looked down at her, his face inches away, and stole a kiss before scrambling to his feet. “Sorry,” he said.
“No, it’s good,” said Rex. “Right response to a different set of inputs. If there had been a grenade or a backdraft, that would’ve been about perfect. Would even have been called smooth.”
Sky let John pull her up, held his hand a little longer, then pulled him in for another kiss. “It was perfect,” she said.
The almost-Miles-Megawatt-Smile flared briefly in the dim corridor, then John snared his axe from the floor. “I’m going to find out who opened that door.”
“While you’re there,” said Rex, “see if you can see what all the smoke is about.”
“Gotcha,” said John. He used the axe to push the door open, then slipped inside the room.
Sky looked at Rex. “Anything cause smokeless fires?”
“Cigalikes,” said Rex. “You know, those e-sigs. Chemical spills, but they don’t smell like flowers either. Maybe Hollywood, if someone’s filming a movie.” He scratched at his stubble. “I hate to say it, but he was probably right. Where there’s smoke, there’s—”
John burst back into the corridor, slamming the door closed behind him. His eyes were wild. “Run,” he said, before the door exploded into fragments. Sky was tossed aside, her head hitting the wall, and she slid down into the cool black.
∙ • ● • ∙
“C’mon kid, I’m too old to be carrying children around.” The voice was familiar, but muffled, like it was coming from a long way off. “You need to get up, Sky. You’ve got to get up.”
She opened her eyes, black edges around her vision. Sky could see a face — Rex, like a Tyrannosaurus — above her. She tried to speak, coughed, tried again. “You look terrible.”
“That’s because,” said Rex, “we’re getting our asses kicked.” His face was covered in soot, a bright angry burn on the lower part of his jaw. His left eye was weeping and red. Rex’s face pulled away as he stood up, and he reached a hand down to her. “C’mon. You’ve got to move.”
“Where’s John?” Sky took his hand, felt herself lifted up — it feels like floating, everything feels like I’m floating — and almost went back down as the dizziness hit.
Rex almost smiled. She could see he wanted to, but it didn’t come. “Like I said. He’s getting his ass kicked. So you have time. To get moving.”
“What happened to you?”
“I got my ass kicked,” said Rex. “I’ve fought a lot of fires, but…” His voice trailed away, then he shook himself out of it. “We’ve got to get going.”
“Wait,” said Sky. “Where?”
“Out,” said Rex. “We’ve got to get out.”
“Hell, no,” said Sky. “My lover’s here, and all my friends are here.”
“We’re going to die,” said Rex. He looked like he meant it.
Sky pulled her taser out. “If that’s what it takes.” Maybe it was the hit to the head, but she meant it too, because she didn’t want a life without John Miles in it.
“R
ight,” said Rex. “Here’s where we’re at. There’s this thing—”
The wall beside him exploded in a shower of drywall and smoke, and John came through wrestling … something. It looked like a man made of fire, the whites and yellows and reds of a hearth flickering up through his body. His eyes were the brightest white, like the core of a furnace, his mouth held in a snarl. He — it? No, definitely a he — and John were wrestling over a fire axe held between them. The air around them shimmered with heat.
Sky raised her taser without conscious thought, pulled the trigger. In the hair’s breadth of time between her raising it and firing, the man of fire looked at her and seemed to smile. The taser tick-tick-ticked and … nothing.
Then it exploded in her hand, the battery inside swelling with heat. Sky screamed, hands covering her face as shards of metal and plastic flew like shrapnel.
She heard a grunt, spared a glance and saw John use the distraction to wrest the axe away from the man of fire. John gave a yell, swinging the axe into the burning figure. It passed through, but sluggish, pulling John off balance. The man of fire seemed to laugh, taking a step back. “You can’t fight fire with an axe, little man. And you should not,” and here, he looked at Sky, “throw batteries into a fire. It’s on all the warning labels.”
John righted himself, looked at the fire axe in his hand, and swung again. It snared on something in the man of fire, pulled him a little off center again, and those terrible bright white eyes swung away from Sky. The man of fire took a step back. “You killed my brother.”
“The big guy?” Rex was taking a couple steps back. “He didn’t put up such a hard fight.”
“Your view of his value doesn’t stop him from being my brother. His power is now mine, and you have made me Agni. You have made me fire.” Agni — the man of fire — laughed. “You held the power of the Night for so long, squandered all it had to offer, and now you will die, with just a taste of what could have been.”
“To be fair,” said John, holding up a hand as he bent over, catching his breath, “none of the three of us squandered the Night, or whatever it is.”
Agni blinked, the white-hot eyes shutting off for a second. “What?”
“It was my buddy, Val,” said John, leaning on the axe. “He had the — what do you call it? The Night? Stupid name. Anyway, Val, and, uh, I guess, Danny.” John straightened, working a kink from his back. “Thing is—”
Night's Fall (Night's Champion Book 2) Page 33
