She plunged the crystalline sword into the roof of the engine, Caledfwlch slicing through the metal as easily as if it were tin foil. She made one long seam and then started on a perpendicular one to make a flap. She had just finished the flap when a lightning bolt sizzled past her right arm.
Turning, she saw Set perched on the car behind her.
* * *
She had just enough time to grab the flap with one gauntlet and give the flap a good tug. The metal tore away, opening a hole in the car. She hoped that would be big enough for Sam to fit through. She broke contact with roof for a moment as she rolled onto her stomach. The cape lined up with the hole enough for Sam to drop through the opening. Before he did, he shouted a warning, “Be careful! You won’t have any room to maneuver up there!”
She couldn’t deny that. Up on the roof of the car she would be a sitting duck for Set’s lightning bolts. That was what the bastard had counted on. The whole thing had been a trap to lure her into the subway so that he could zap her with the staff, like he had Mom. That was if Lois stayed up here.
With one hand on the car she got herself into a squatting position. From there she leaped into the air, grabbing onto a pipe again. She didn’t stay up there long this time around, letting go five seconds later. She had hoped to come down on Set to pin him down, but she miscalculated, coming down a few feet behind him.
She already had Caledfwlch out to strike. Set proved quicker than she thought, somersaulting forward on the car. He tried to spin around to get her with the staff. She rolled to her right, allowing herself to fall off the car. With one of the gauntlets she snagged the side of the car and managed to cling to the side.
She considered tossing the sword into the air and trying to guide it with her mind to attack Set. She didn’t feel confident enough in her ability to guide it on a train going a hundred miles an hour, though. Instead she slid along the edge of the car, waiting for Set to peer over the edge. The red eyes of his dog’s head mask appeared moments later.
“You fool,” he shouted. “You can’t stop me.”
“The hell I can’t!” With one hand she reached up to grab Set by the snout of his mask. She used the armor’s strength to hurl him behind her, against the wall of the tunnel. She felt his hands clawing at her, trying to tear her off as well, but she kept hold of the subway car. Once she was sure Set was gone, she flipped herself back onto the top of the car.
She didn’t try dropping herself into the engine through the hole she’d made for Sam. Instead she landed on the ledge of the engine, using the suction cups to keep herself steady while she took out Caledfwlch. The emergency release for the other cars would be disabled, but the sword could make up for that. She swept the blade across the coupling mechanism. The rest of the train detached with a grinding sound. The cars with their terrified passengers would stop eventually; the city could fish them out, or else she’d figure out a way to help once she finished with her job.
She didn’t need Caledfwlch to get into the car; just one good punch broke the engine door. She found Sam instead, bent over a black console. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“Almost done,” he said. “What about Set?”
“I ditched him.” She looked through the front window but didn’t see anything but the tunnel ahead of them. “Any idea how far the next station is?”
“Probably a few miles. I should have this finished by then.”
She decided it’d be best to let him work in peace, but he motioned for her to squat down next to her. “Time for you to learn something useful,” he said. “You have to be careful with these wires—”
A bolt of lightning cut through the air in the engine, burning into Sam’s leg. He collapsed with a scream. Lois ducked and rolled as far to the left as she could, just before another lightning bolt sizzled past. This one hit the control panel of the engine, not that it was very useful at the moment anyway.
When she completed her roll, Lois saw Set in the doorway, his staff at the ready. Somehow he’d managed to get on the engine without her noticing. Could he turn invisible too? She didn’t have time to think about that now; he was already turning the staff towards her. She faked a dive to her right and then tumbled forward. At the end of her somersault she grabbed his feet to yank them from under him.
As he fell, Set brought the staff around. His lightning bolt hit the floor, but the staff itself hit her in the side of the head. She flew across the engine, smacking into a wall. She landed on her back, staring up at Set, seeing three of him spinning around her. She also saw three staffs pointed down at her.
“You fought better than your predecessor, but not by much,” he said. At this point she couldn’t argue with him. She reached for Caledfwlch, but she couldn’t find it.
Before the staff fired, she saw three of her father in her swirling vision. The Sams grappled with the Sets, trying to wrench the staffs from his hands. She forced herself to get onto her knees, to try and help the Sams. The three of him merged into two and then one, as did the Sets.
The remaining Set wrested the staff away from Sam and then used it to bat Sam across the car. Lois could only manage a scream as Set fired a lightning bolt into the center of Sam’s chest. He didn’t have any kind of magic armor to protect him, not like Mom had. When he hit the floor, he didn’t move.
“No!” Lois screamed. She lunged forward, her armored shoulder hitting Set in the center of the chest. He staggered back a step. Before he could level the staff at her, she kicked him in the midsection. This time she watched him tumble out of the car and land on the tracks. She pulled Caledfwlch from its sheath to throw, but Set was already gone.
Lois hurried over to her father, a steaming hole in the middle of his chest. Despite the odds, his eyes were still open. He coughed, a wad of blood splattering on her armor. Then he motioned to the bomb. “Yellow,” he whispered.
Looking at the bomb, she realized he meant the yellow wire. She pulled it out. The bomb’s display went dark, but it didn’t explode. “You did it,” she said, turning back to Sam.
He nodded to her. “Sorry,” he said.
Then he died.
Chapter 23
The rest of the plan went off without a hitch. She climbed to the top of the car, waited for the next station to approach, and then jumped. There were more transit guards on the steps of this station as well. Lois ignored them, focusing on a Corvette sitting outside a club. The valet was just stepping out when she reached the car.
She shoved him to the ground and climbed into the car. Ignoring the valet and owner’s protests, she floored the accelerator. She drove about five miles down the road, to another station. The Corvette wasn’t as nimble as her bike when it came to steering around traffic, but she was too focused to let anything get in her way at this point.
She didn’t have much time before the train would reach the station. She hurried to find the third rail, the one the subway train used for its power. The armor was just as insulated from electricity as she thought; she didn’t have so much as a hair stand up on her neck as she tore the rail away, bending it back as if it were made of plastic. She kept bending it back, dragging the rail along with her as she ran in the opposite direction of the train.
The rest was a matter of physics. Without the third rail for power, the train began to decelerate. She watched as it finally coasted to a stop, about twenty yards shy of the end of the line. She took no joy in seeing this; she hadn’t won anything. Sam had disabled the bomb and kept her from being killed by Set so that she could stop the train.
Now he was dead. She climbed aboard the engine, hoping that she was wrong and that he would somehow be alive. Maybe it had been another of his tests, to see how she would react to such a terrible situation. As soon as she hopped into the engine, though, she knew that wasn’t the case. He was dead, his body already starting to cool.
She couldn’t leave him in here. He had spent thirty-five years hiding his identity; she wasn’t going to blow it for him now. He didn’t weigh m
uch when she picked him up. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered, looking down at his still face. Then she slung him over her shoulder, to carry him out of the tunnel.
She found the Corvette still parked outside. She dropped Sam into the passenger’s seat and then drove back to MacKenzie Station to retrieve her bike. She left him in the car while she fetched the Kawasaki. The bike she hid in an alley, deciding the stolen car would make a better hearse. Now she just had to decide where to go.
For the second time that week she had to plan a funeral. As with Dr. Johnson she didn’t know what Sam would want. She knew he wouldn’t want a service or an obituary or any of that. He wouldn’t even want a grave.
She found her way to Stratton Brothers without realizing it until she was breaking open the door. She remembered the salesman saying they had a cremation oven on site. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. If she could figure out how to fire it up then she could burn his body. The ashes she could ask Mom what to do with; she might want to keep them so she could finally have him close by.
She wandered around the empty showroom, noting that the salesman had put a fresh lining in the coffin Melanie had thrown up in. She was trying to figure out where the cremation oven was when she heard a click behind her.
The salesman’s hair was mussed, he was wearing blue pajamas, and he had a Beretta pointed at her head, but she still recognized him from her previous visits. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m here for a cremation,” she growled. “Fire up your furnace.”
“How about I call the cops instead?”
“Are you a moron? Look at the armor. I’m the Silver Seraph. That peashooter can’t do anything to me and he’s already dead.”
“Maybe I’ll try it anyway.”
“You’re not that stupid. All I want is to cremate my father.”
“Your father?”
“Am I stuttering?” She pulled Caledfwlch out with her free hand. This spooked Stratton enough that he fired the gun. As she had said, the bullet pinged off the armor to bury itself into the silver casket, the one that would supposedly keep out any bugs until Doomsday. She pointed the sword at his throat. “Your gun can’t hurt me but this sword sure as hell can hurt you. Start the oven. Now.”
“It’ll take hours—”
“Then you better get started, hadn’t you?”
The cremation oven was in a separate building connected by a narrow tunnel. She followed Stratton inside and watched as he worked the controls. They didn’t seem too difficult. “How long is it going to take?”
“I told you: a few hours.”
“Then I put in this box and push him in?”
“Yes—” He didn’t get a chance to finish before she knocked him unconscious. She found some rope to tie his hands and feet and then a rag to keep him gagged. She carried him out to the showroom to set him in the wooden casket and closed the lid on him. He would be fine in there for a while. In the meantime she had work to do.
The armor didn’t have air conditioning, so she took off the helmet as the room became hotter. She sat in the corner, staring at the box her father lay in. She thought of their picnic just a few hours ago, how things had seemed almost normal between them for a few minutes. If Percy hadn’t shown up to warn them about the train, they could have savored the moment even longer. If that bastard Set hadn’t rigged the train to explode, she and her father might have laid the groundwork to start a new life.
None of that would happen now. Sam Rivers was finally dead. This time there was no doubt about it. He wouldn’t rise from the ashes to continue fighting crime this time. He was gone, forever.
She didn’t cry. Instead, she started talking. She told her father everything she could remember from when she was a little girl on. Before he was a pile of ashes, she wanted him to know everything about his daughter, all the things she’d never had the chance to say while he was still alive.
She had finished an overview of her seven years on the road when a buzzer sounded to indicate the oven was ready. “I guess you know the rest,” she said. She got to her feet, wondering if she should say a prayer or something. Had he followed any religion before he went undercover? She wondered if Mom would know the answer to that. How much had she known about Sam’s past?
Instead of a prayer, she said only, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Then she pushed the button to send his box into the oven.
The process took a few more hours, during which time she looked down at the floor and replayed those last few minutes of Sam’s life over and over again. She had been careless. There was no other way to put it. She should have made sure Set was really gone before she went back to the car. She should have kept watch while Sam disarmed the bomb. That he had asked her to come over and watch wasn’t any excuse in her mind. She had been careless and he had paid the price for it. He and Mom had fought crime together for thirty years, but Lois and him didn’t last thirty days.
She left the funeral home with a plastic box containing Sam’s remains. Before she left she untied Stratton and took the gag out of his mouth. Stratton was still unconscious, either from her blow or else he’d fallen asleep in the coffin. Either way, she didn’t care at the moment.
For her last stop she fetched her bike from the alley. She saw a few police cars around the station. Detective Murphy was probably in there, sizing up the scene. She cradled the container of ashes against her body as she started out for home, to leave Sam’s ashes on the mantle. At last he was home.
* * *
She didn’t get any sleep. Nor did she change, shower, or comb her hair. She just stared at the mantle for hours, until it was time for visiting hours at the hospital. Then she stood up and went outside to Mom’s bike, deciding to take it in case anyone had noticed Lois’s the night before.
She didn’t remember anything about the ride to the hospital. She didn’t remember going inside or taking the elevator up. She didn’t remember anything until she sat down beside Mom. Her mother’s eyes flickered open a moment later, as if she sensed something was wrong.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“Sam’s dead,” she whispered.
“Oh no.” Mom took it better than Lois had imagined; she didn’t scream or even sob at this announcement. But then she had probably expected this to happen for years. She did find the strength to reach out with one hand to Lois. “I’m sorry, sweetie. What happened?”
“I killed him.”
“I doubt that.”
“I might as well have. There was a train. Set had rigged it to explode. Sam and I got on board. I thought I’d thrown Set off.” Lois stopped, shaking her head. “I was so stupid I didn’t see where he’d gone. He surprised us. Daddy saved my life. He took the shot that should have been for me.”
Mom didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then she said, “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. Your father always knew the risks of what he did. So did I. So do you by now.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Come here.” Lois slid her chair closer, so that Mom could take her hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You do know your father loved you very much, don’t you?”
Lois thought of their little picnic and Sam asking about Tony, as concerned as any normal father for his little girl. “I know.”
“He always wanted to protect you. That’s why he stayed away for so long. That’s why he took that blast from Set.” Mom smiled a little. “He always said that you were the best thing in his life. He might not have been able to hang on all these years if not for you.”
“I think you had something to do with it too.”
“Yes. He loved us both, in his way. He was a good man. My soul mate.”
Mom finally began to cry. Lois leaned forward to wrap her in a hug. They stayed like that, both of them sobbing over the man they had barely known, until Mom fell asleep. Lois set her mother down on the pillows and then buried her head in her hands to sob.
Chapter 24
The gift shop was already open and Melanie behind the counter when Lois came in. As Mom had, Melanie immediately divined that Lois was upset. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to your mom?”
“No, she’s fine,” Lois said. She had left Mom to sleep and then decided to go home and change into her work clothes. At least working at the gift shop would give her something to do and she wouldn’t end up getting anyone killed.
“Then what is it? You look awful.”
“I’m just a little under the weather,” Lois lied. She brushed past Melanie to go into the back. Tony was filling out some paperwork inside the tiny cell he called an office.
“Hey,” he said. He brushed hair away from her face to try and kiss her, but she backed away. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish everyone would stop asking me that. I’m fine. I just want to get my drawer and go to work.”
“Sure,” Tony said, raising an eyebrow. “Is this about what happened after the funeral?”
“Drop it, would you?”
He threw up his hands. “Sorry. I’ll stop asking.” He opened the safe beneath his desk that contained the cash drawers. She snatched it from him and then took it out front to begin counting.
“I can cover the register,” Melanie said.
“I can do it. I’m not a child.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Lois cut Melanie off by slamming down the drawer. She ran through the piles of coins and bills to make sure everything was accounted for. Then she jammed the drawer into the register.
Her first customer came in a few minutes later, the old woman Lois had served her first day on the job. The old woman’s face brightened as she toddled up to the counter. “Oh, it’s you again! How have things been for you? Quebec was so lovely. My daughter and I—”
“Are you buying something?”
“Yes indeed. We were on our way back and I just had to come back and see the place again. It’s so marvelous, though someone was saying there was a murder here. Do you know anything about that?”
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