by N. D. Wilson
Mercy bit her lip. She looked at the slowly breathing couch of people beneath the man, at the sweating priests and the dazed rabbi. How many thousands were in this building already? How many more would come after her? Would she be a body in a wall when the next person passed?
Mercy Rios shook her head. She squared her shoulders and straightened.
“No,” she said. “You’re some kind of devil. Kill me if you want, but I’m not giving you anything.” Turning, she flung the package like a Frisbee. It fluttered out into the air and over the edge. But one of the men from the couch—an armrest—exploded after it even as it left her hand.
The man leapt off the building. With his gray suit coat flapping, he snatched the package out of the air, curled around it, and disappeared. Seconds passed and Mercy tried not to hear the sick sound that floated up from the street.
Mercy swallowed hard.
A woman spoke behind her.
“You’ve fed enough, Radu. Quiet the dragon gin.”
Mercy spun. The kneeling priests still whispered, never breaking concentration. A woman like no woman Mercy had ever seen rose from the human stairs. She was taller than any man Mercy knew, and her red hair was pulled back into a braid that fell to her waist. She wore cracked leather the color of parched earth, studded with sea glass and smooth stones, and tight enough to be a second skin. Her freckled and scarred arms were bare to the shoulders, but large fish scales had been outlined onto every inch of them in deep-blue ink. The same scales crawled up her long neck, stopping just beneath her jaw. A deep scar underlined each stark cheekbone, too symmetrical to be accidental, and her eyes were the color of an angry sea.
“Girl,” she said. “I am Anann the Morrigan. Breath and bone, you belong to me.”
Behind Mercy, Radu Bey began to laugh.
eight
BOMBING RUN
CYRUS ROLLED OVER ON HIS BUNK. He knew it was no longer late. By now, it had begun to be early. Moonlight flickered and flashed on the floor beneath the cabin’s little window, sliced and diced by tall swaying trees. Antigone’s breathing was slow and steady on the bunk above him. Dennis was snoring on the bunk across the room.
For Cyrus, sleep was impossible. His leg wasn’t bothering him. The throbbing had downgraded from shark bite to dog bite, and then down again to bike wreck. His mind couldn’t stop chewing on Dan’s words. Or maybe Dan’s words were chewing his mind.
He was the Desolation? He would come on the wings of abominations? Suddenly, he cared about every word. The seventy weeks would soon be passed? Come again? Seventy weeks since when? He rolled over on his bunk, facing the wall. And then he rolled back. The keys hanging from the little snake around his neck jingled as he tossed. Reaching up, he fingered them, two of Skelton’s gifts. He could remember the old man tossing them to him. He could remember the cold tingle he had felt when they were in his hands. But he could barely remember being that boy in the motel who knew nothing of real danger, who knew nothing about real Dangers. The tooth had been on the key ring then. There was no tingle to the key ring now.
Cyrus sighed, watching the moon paint spatter on the old plank floor.
He and Antigone had given Rupert both paper globes to study, not that there had been much choice. One had been meant for him, after all, and hiding the other one would have been impossible after Rupert caught them with it in the outhouse. Hopefully, the notations would make more sense to him.
Cyrus cautiously reached down to feel the little puckered pellet wounds in his calf. Maybe the pain was keeping him awake. No. Not the pain. The sharpness was gone, replaced by a familiar soreness that could have been caused by any number of things. He was awake because of what was going on inside his skull.
While the sun had fallen, Cyrus and his sister had sat with their mother, letting her squeeze their hands tight while she told stories of their father. Antigone had asked her for the old stories, the ones they had never been told, but their mother’s eyes had wandered and grown heavy.
Cyrus kicked over onto his back and the bed rocked beneath him. Soon the sun would rise and they would fly. They would run and find some new place to hide, while Niffy and his monks were heading off to help the Brendanites wipe Ashtown clean. If they had their way, they would reset the O of B all the way back to the Middle Ages, when every member was a monk. But if the members fought back, then what? Kill them? It didn’t make any sense to Cyrus. Why start a fight with your own side when there were real enemies all around?
They wanted Ashtown’s darkest weapons.
Cyrus thought about the patrik the monk had held, how it had grown in his hand. Patricia had been afraid—terrified enough to almost choke him. Could she do that? Grow in his hand on command?
Cyrus slid Patricia off his throat. Her tail popped out of her mouth, and she appeared in his hands with a blink of silver to match the moon. The keys and the empty silver sheath that had once held the Dragon’s Tooth dropped onto his chest, and he forced the little Celtic snake straight. She twined her neck around his thumb and he studied the sparking green of her emerald eyes.
“You didn’t like that snake today, did you?” Cyrus whispered. Patricia tried to bite her tail, but Cyrus pulled it away. She tried again and was thwarted again. Resigning herself to visibility, she slid down his wrist, rubbing her cool back against him like a preening cat.
“What now, P?” Cyrus asked. “Where are we going to run next?”
The snake didn’t answer. She reached Cyrus’s elbow and stretched for his stomach. He smiled. She was heading back up to his neck.
“Do I look like the Desolation to you?” Cyrus asked, and his smile faded with the thought.
The screen door to the little cabin squealed open. A Rupert Greeves–shaped shadow stepped into the room.
“Rupe?” Cyrus asked.
Rupert nodded. “Come with me.”
Outside, the trees swayed like upright sleepers beneath the silver moon. Shadows darted and swooped and dragged around Cyrus as he followed Rupert along a narrow dirt path. Patricia still glowed on his wrist, but now Cyrus had his forefinger in her mouth to keep her from gulping her tail.
“The leg fine?” Rupert asked, glancing back. “You’re hobbling less.”
“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “Normal pain. More like a groan than a scream.”
“Brilliant,” Rupert said. “What comes after groan? A mutter?”
Cyrus didn’t answer. Rupert had led him to the boathouse. They passed the burial mound of canoes, and rounded the building to an old wooden barn door on rails. It had been thrown open, and a single lantern sat on a workbench inside.
Llewellyn Douglas, complete with puffy vest and green pom-pom hat, looked up from his wheelchair. Kayaks hung from the ceiling, and long rowing sculls were upside down in a stack of racks that filled the entire left side of the building.
The workbench in front of Llewellyn was covered with gear.
“I have what I have, Rupe,” the old man said. “Nothing’s too moth-bit, but it’s all antique now.”
Rupert picked up a pair of black leggings and threw them at Cyrus. They were featherlight, and the weave was oily and slick in his hands. A matching long-sleeved shirt followed. Black waxed canvas shorts and a waxed canvas shirt were heaped on top.
Cyrus caught them all and watched Rupert pick up larger versions of the same.
“What are we doing?” Cyrus asked.
“You don’t like it when I vanish, yeah?” Rupert smiled, but there was no laughter in his eyes. “Tonight you vanish with me.”
“Seriously?” Cyrus asked. “Where? How long? What about my mom? Dan? Tigs? Do they know?”
“If they did, it wouldn’t be vanishing, would it? Get suited,” Rupert said. “Diana and the Captain have their orders. They get your family out. If things go well, we’ll meet up with them by lunch.”
“And if things don’t go well?” Cyrus asked.
“Then you will never see them again,” Rupert said. “And that, mate, is the truth every time you set foot
outside your door, every time you sleep, every time you blink.”
Rupert stripped off his shirt and began to pull on the tight black featherlight skin Llewellyn had given him. He nodded at the pile in Cyrus’s hands and raised his brows, waiting.
Ten minutes later, Cyrus walked down to the lake beside his big Keeper. Patricia was hidden back around his neck. Waxy pocketed shorts had been belted around his waist, and the bottom of each leg had been cinched in tight just above his knees. The sleeves of his shirt had also been tied below his shoulders. The featherlight skin completely covered his arms and legs and felt like nothing more than cold air. He wore no shoes, but Llewellyn had given him socks of the same strange black cloth, dotted on the bottom with tiny rubber beads. Matching gloves, too, gripped with the same rubber dots.
Rupert led Cyrus out onto the dock. The moonlight split around the dock and stretched away to the far side of the lake. Cyrus adjusted his thick belt as he walked. He had a small spotlight, a tight coil of rope, a small non-lethal electrical pulse gun, and a long black-bladed knife at the small of his back. In Cyrus’s last year at Ashtown, Nolan had spent hours training him with a knife of the same length, but this blade had felt heavier in his hand.
With knives, and against Nolan, Cyrus had always been awful.
Rupert reached the end of the dock, adjusted his belt, and checked the pouch of his shorts, where he had stored half of the lump of Quick Water. Satisfied, the big man dove, leaving dark rings in the moon-silver water. Ten yards away, he surfaced quietly and began to swim toward the floating jet borrowed from the Boones.
Cyrus stared at the water and inflated his cheeks. Ripples stared back up at him, waiting with daggers of cold. Rupert wasn’t waiting. Heart pounding, jaw clenched, Cyrus dove.
He slid into the water like an eel. Cold bit the skin on his face, but it could only gum-chew the rest of him. The borrowed clothes worked. Cyrus surfaced, and he could breathe without gasping. His joints weren’t locking up. Ahead of him, the plane’s cabin door was already open. Rupert was reeling in an anchor.
Antigone jerked awake and looked around the cabin. She’d been dreaming about planes. But it wasn’t all dreams. Jet engines were roaring.
“Cy?” She hopped off her bunk, winced at the sting of her bare feet on the floor, and slapped at her brother’s bed. Blankets.
Outside, Antigone tiptoe-jogged toward the lake. Two shapes and a wheelchair were side by side in the moonlight, watching the plane as it crawled away across the water.
Diana. The Captain. Llewellyn.
“Hey,” Antigone said, and Diana looked back. Even in the moonlight, Antigone could see the sadness and worry on Diana’s face. Her arms were crossed tight.
“Where’s Cy?” Antigone asked.
Diana nodded at the jet. She began to bite a nail, noticed, and jerked her hand back down. “He’s with Rupe,” she said. “They’re going to Ashtown.”
Antigone opened her mouth and then shut it. She shook her head. Cy was … no. He couldn’t be. He hadn’t said anything. Why? Ashtown? Was there anywhere less safe for Cyrus right now? She should be worried. She should be mad. She was both. But there was something deeper, too. She was … hurt.
Antigone dropped into a crouch and hugged her knees. The plane was accelerating. A small hint of warmth brushed against her face. A breeze kissed her with the scent of fuel and flame.
“I don’t understand,” Antigone said. “Why didn’t he wake me up?”
The plane was only two blinking wingtips now, rising in the air, banking left, climbing above the black shadow of a mountain. Antigone felt like someone was standing on her stomach. Tears were a real danger. She pressed her mouth against her arm. Diana sat on the ground beside her.
“Cyrus didn’t know what was going on,” Diana said. “But Rupert needs someone with him. Jeb isn’t exactly available, and he wouldn’t take me.”
“Why not?” Antigone asked. “You’ve done a ton more than Cyrus.”
“He had to leave another pilot behind,” Diana said. “We’re leaving early.”
The Captain cleared his throat loudly. “The lad was nay wisdom’s choice.”
“Shut your hole, pirate,” Llewellyn said. “The boy’s as ready as he can be. And you were no choice at all, Captain, not if Rupe wanted one who’d obey an order.”
The Captain sniffed and turned to face the man in the wheelchair. Placing one hand on his sword hilt, he bowed dramatically. “Insults unprovoked become not a man of gentleness. If not for thine age and thine lameness—”
Llewellyn snorted. “Oh, go put on your lace collar and cry in your hankie. Rupert told you and that Nolan not to let the big six-fingered oaf out of your sight, and yet here you are.” Llewellyn wheeled his chair backward, and then turned it around, bouncing his way back toward the cabins. “Let the lonely girls cry and go do your job!”
“He’s right, John,” Diana said. “It’s bad enough having Gil around with Rupert gone.”
The Captain bowed stiffly, fluffed his woolly beard, and then strolled away in silence.
“Llew and the Cap were stuck here for a while before we came,” Diana said. “Pretty sick of each other.”
Antigone nodded, but she didn’t care about that. She wanted to kick her brother.
Diana didn’t need to be told. “Rupe was in a hurry. If Cy had said goodbye, how much time would Rupert have wasted telling you that you couldn’t come?” Antigone didn’t answer. “You would still be sitting right where you are now, but you’d be even madder.”
Antigone exhaled slowly. She knew it was true, but it didn’t make being left behind any more fun. And Ashtown? There was still plenty for her to worry about.
“Llewellyn was wrong,” Antigone said suddenly. “About taking orders. If Rupe wanted someone who would obey, Cyrus was the last person in the world he should have taken. Dennis Gilly would have been better, even with his concussion.”
Diana smiled. “Cy’s not as stubborn as you think.”
Antigone looked at the girl next to her. She cocked her head and blinked.
“What?” Diana asked. “What’s the look for?”
“Cyrus? Cyrus Lawrence Smith? Not stubborn?” Antigone raised her eyebrows. “I mean, you’ve been around him, yes?”
Diana laughed. “Okay, so he’s stubborn. But not that stubborn. Not when he really respects someone.”
Antigone was stunned.
Diana groaned, embarrassed. “People don’t scare him into doing things,” she said. “And they can’t just boss him into doing things.” She waited for agreement, but Antigone wasn’t saying anything. Diana swallowed, then continued. “Not unless he respects them, unless he wants them as a boss. That’s what I meant. You know, he listens to Nolan about fighting but not languages. He listens to Rupe about pretty much anything. Me with flying. Dennis with sailing. You with … with …”
“With nothing,” Antigone said. “I practically have to bite his ankles to make him do something.”
Diana laughed. “Yeah, well, what would you think of a guy who did whatever his sister told him to do?”
Antigone stared at Diana’s moonlit profile. “You like him,” she said. It was hard to keep the accusation out of her voice.
Diana squirmed. “That’s not what I was talking about.”
“Well, you do,” Antigone said. “I mean, you’ve always been super friendly. And helpful. But you’re so much older than he is. I never thought …”
“Antigone,” Diana said, and her voice had gone cold. “I’m not talking about this with you. It’s stupid and pointless. I’m not talking about this with anyone. Not even myself. I’m not even going to think about it.” She sniffed. “And I’m not that much older.”
“You’ve totally thought about it. You’re thinking about it right now.”
“If you don’t like centipedes, don’t flip rocks,” Diana said. “Don’t take your temperature if you don’t want to be sick.” She paused, scrunching up her face. “If we’re all still aliv
e in four or five years, ask me to think about it then. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
Antigone still stared at the older girl, waiting for her to at least return a glance. But Diana kept her eyes on the moon and the water.
“Do you worry about him?” Antigone asked.
Diana didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Antigone looked around. Diana had been standing on the shore in the middle of the night watching the plane fly away. It was gone, but she was still rooted to the same spot. Of course she was worried.
“More than Jeb?” Antigone asked.
Diana sighed. “Different,” she said.
Once he had set the flight plan, Rupert wasn’t interested in talking. While Cyrus blinked and stared at the instruments, Rupert had unzipped a waterproof bag, tugged out an old notebook and pencil, and begun flipping pages. He read, he scribbled, he sketched.
Cyrus had questions. He had tried to talk.
“Where are we going?”
The fourth time he asked, Rupert had finally licked the tip of his pencil and grunted.
“Ashtown.”
“Why?”
Rupert had looked up for that one. “To make a vice a virtue.”
Cyrus had asked about Phoenix and Radu Bey and the O of B and Flint. Only Flint had made Rupert look back up from his pages. His eyes had sparkled. Then he smiled and said nothing.
On Cyrus’s fifth attempt to get Rupert to predict the behavior of Phoenix or the transmortals, he had mumbled his answer down into his notebook, his accent thickened by his distractedness.
“Give it a go, bruv. See if you can sort it. Good exercise. You’ve heard and seen enough. Look to the motives and what you know about character. Predict. Tell me when we touch down.”
Nothing else had stirred the big man from his studies and his scratching and his whispered thoughts. Cyrus spent the next two hours staring at the panels in front of him, at the black sky, and then at the faintest hint of a glow in the east. And he thought.
Radu Bey and the Ordo Draconis wanted to reassert themselves as untouchably superior to mankind. The O of B was a reminder of centuries of their humiliation. So were the Smiths. They didn’t care about structures or institutions or governments. They wouldn’t want to govern any more than wolves want to govern sheep—that would mean worrying about roads and sewers and building codes. They would want to … Cyrus groped around for a word he had heard Nolan use—transcend. Prey. Be served. The transmortals were proud. Pride meant grudges. And living forever meant that grudges could be nursed for centuries into something more rank and sour than any petty mortal resentment.
