Reapers (Breakers, Book 4)

by Edward W. Robertson

  By the time she stood across the street from it, the concrete stacked nearly a quarter mile into the sky, winter's swift night had fallen on the city. She breathed in and out, fog whirling from her mouth. She'd burned off a bit of the tequila during the ride and now realized she'd have to make the same trip back through the slush and the cold. What did she think would happen—Tilly would rush outside and ask to be whisked uptown with her? A deep feeling of stupidity flash-flooded her veins.

  Then, as if her thoughts had caused it to manifest, a woman walked out the revolving door of the Empire State Building. She was bundled in a scarf and thick coat, but Lucy knew Tilly's walking-across-coals step anywhere.

  And though it was perfectly dark, the girl wore a pair of dark sunglasses big enough to cover her whole eye sockets.

  Lucy had seen her make that fashion statement before. Right before the plague, while she was still living in the Lomans' garage, Tilly had started going around with a boy named Jude. Jude was a drinker, and when he indulged, he became a beater. Between her makeup and sunglasses, Tilly hid it from her mom and dad, who were so busy bitching at each other about their separation they wouldn't have looked up had Godzilla stomped across their living room, but Lucy noticed.

  Lucy stood in the shadows of a recessed doorway and watched Tilly glance up and down the street. Just as Lucy decided to cross over, hooves clocked. Nerve rode up to Tilly, horse steaming. Without a word from either one of them, Nerve got down to help Tilly climb up. The pair trotted away.

  Once the hooves faded, Lucy got on her bike, twice as sober as five minutes before. She made one stop at a Staples along the way, then continued to the toasty Village coffee shop. Inside, the cowboy gave her the evil eye, but she ignored him and headed straight for Reese.

  "I'm surprised they don't charge you rent," she said.

  He sat at a booth with a couple friends who made no bones about looking her up and down. "Can I help you with something?"

  "Come on outside."

  He looked ready to protest, then raised his eyebrows at his friends and scooted from the booth.

  Out on the dark street, Lucy passed him a sealed envelope. "Can you deliver this to Chelsea Pier? Guy named Kerry. Big old bald dude."

  "I've seen him. What's in it for me?"

  Lucy reached for her bag, but drunk as she was, she hadn't brought anything but herself. She grimaced at the blank pavement. "I'm sorry about the movie. I was a dick to you when you were just trying to help me out."

  "I don't want an apology. I want something I can use."

  "I don't have anything, man. I'm trying to do someone a good turn. Will you please get this to Kerry?"

  "Never thought I'd see you beg." Reese sniffed against the cold. "What's it say?"

  "Nothing they'll enjoy hearing about," Lucy sighed. "You'll want to lie low for a while."

  "A deal like that? How could I say no?"

  She kissed him on the cheek. "Don't get any ideas. But you're a good dude."

  She hopped on her bike. He was still standing on the sidewalk watching her go when she turned the corner and was swallowed once more by the canyon of skyscrapers.

  Back at Sicily, she climbed the steps to her floor and flung herself into bed. When she finally woke, light sliced through the blinds. It was several minutes before she remembered what she'd done. She regretted it, but she knew that was the hangover talking.

  She headed downstairs for some chow. The bartender greeted her by name. Ash wasn't around. Sleeping it off, no doubt. Either that or reporting to his superiors about the game-changing success of his mission. She hung around, picking at her eggs and sipping brown liquid the bartender swore was coffee, then went back to her room to clean up. She was freezing her tits off in the shower when she heard the first screams.

  Lucy ran from the stall without turning off the faucet. She stood at the window, water dripping from her hair. Below, fire bloomed from Sicily, whoomping like a sheet flung over a bed. In the middle of the street, a member of Distro security reared back and hurled another flaming cocktail at the bar's face.

  24

  A second shot crashed through the room. The bullet smacked into the top of the temple, spitting flecks of stone onto the smooth floor. Ellie bolted for cover behind its wall, the sheriff right behind her.

  "Dee!" she yelled.

  Three shots blasted past Hobson, shattering panes of the slanted wall behind him. He pulled in tight against the temple and stuck his rifle around the corner.

  "Mom?" Dee called from up top.

  "Come down the back side," Ellie said, running to the structure's rear. "He won't have a shot."

  Hobson's rifle discharged. From the entrance through the Egyptian wing, the shooter fired back. Dee's shoes dangled off the lip of the roof. She squirmed her lower half off the edge, keeping low, then dropped to the ground in a deep crouch.

  "It's a trap?"

  Ellie pointed across the dry moat to the exit deeper into the Met. "Cover that door. Shoot anything that moves." She rolled around the other corner. The sheriff was glued to the temple's side, eye trained on his scope. "How many?"

  "One that I saw," the man murmured. "He's pulled back. I think my last shot was too close for comfort."

  She glanced out the bank of windows, which were broad enough for any of them to squeeze through, and her skin prickled. Branches shivered across the black grass. "I think someone's outside. Only thing saving us is the darkness. We've got to move."

  The sheriff swore. "How's Dee's aim?"

  "Unpolished."

  He didn't take his eye from his scope. "Post her on the corner to cover the shooter. You make a break for the other door. If you make it, you can return the favor."

  Ellie laughed wryly, keeping both eyes on the park beyond the windows for the glint of metal. "Try not to let him get a shot off. You don't want me bleeding all over that fine suit of yours."

  Hobson smiled faintly. "It wouldn't be the first time I've scrubbed blood from a suit."

  To her surprise, she found she trusted him. She went around back to Dee, who sat with her rifle braced across her raised knee, watching the other door. Ellie explained their next move.

  "You're just going to run?" Dee said.

  Ellie gazed at the empty moat. She could run along its bottom, hidden from view, but climbing out would leave her exposed and essentially motionless for several seconds. "Unless you know how to fly."

  "Well, don't get shot!"

  "Don't let me get shot."

  Dee gave her a look of twisted fright that Ellie read as clearly as the placard on the tomb: how could you ask this of me? Ellie dropped down beside her, keeping one eye on the dark mouth of the passage to the heart of the museum. "I was scared to be your mom, you know. I was so afraid I'd screw it up. But after the job Chip did with you, I had nothing to worry about. There's no one I'd rather have covering me."

  Dee blinked, then edged forward to the stone corner and swung her gun around the other side, taking aim at the doorway they'd used to enter the chamber. There hadn't been another shot since the sheriff's last exchange. She returned to him.

  "At the count of ten," she said.

  He nodded. Ellie unshouldered her rifle and clicked off the safety. Counting in her head, she moved beside Dee. "Three. Two. One."

  She sprinted onto the open platform. The bridge was set back toward the door they'd come in through and she locked her eyes on the dark tunnel. At the steps down to the bridge, she stumbled, arm thrown in front of her. A rifle boomed behind her, followed by a second. She caught her balance and sprinted headlong into the second tunnel feeding from the temple chambers.

  Heart hammering, she jogged past glass cases, the light fading as she got further from the windows overlooking the temple. At the T-intersection ahead, with no sign or sound of strangers, she turned around and returned to the tunnel mouth.

  "Clear!" she shouted. She installed herself at the corner, took a look at the windows, and sighted down her rifle at the first door
way across the room.

  Back at the temple, Dee held up three fingers, counting down. When her index finger fell, she broke cover, eyes so wide they looked painted on. Her run was the longest four seconds of Ellie's life.

  Dee fell in beside her at the wall, smelling like the ammonia-laced sweat of sheer panic.

  "Come up here and cover the windows," Ellie said.

  "Right," Dee said vaguely. Ellie stood and Dee crouched beneath her to help watch the dark tunnel to the Egyptian wing.

  Hobson signaled, counted down, and ran. He was older and he ran with a shuffling, low-kneed style that felt like it took forever to cross the room. Then he was beside them, too, breathing hard, his bowler lost at some point during the run.

  "I have never resented one hundred feet of space more thoroughly than I do now," he whispered breathily.

  "It's pitch black ahead," Ellie said.

  "If our assailant has doubled back, or has an accomplice outside, a light will paint a target on our chests." Hobson risked a look around the corner.

  A bullet crackled past his ear and whined off the far wall. Ellie opened fire on the light that had flared from the other tunnel. Glass shattered.

  "I'll light the lantern," Hobson said. He rattled it from his pack. Within seconds, he had the oiled wick aflame. He hurried down the tunnel past cases of curved swords and lacquered armor. Ellie sent Dee first, then waited for the pair to reach the T-intersection before racing to catch up.

  "Which way?" the sheriff said.

  "Right," Ellie said. Not that she had any idea how to get to the entrance or the nearest emergency exit. But left would run them back toward the Egyptian wing.

  Hobson trundled forward. Ellie walked after him, rifle in hand. Dee held hers tight to her chest. The lantern flashed past portraits of colonial Americans, presidents and preachers and masted ships at war. The next door opened to a cavernous room of furniture and antique household goods. Ellie was too focused on putting space between them and the attacker to pay much mind.

  "Left," she said.

  Hobson veered through the door. Broken glass crunched under their feet. Rusted knives rested in the few displays that hadn't been looted. Ellie took the lead into another expansive room. The torchlight shined on full suits of armor, lances soaring above the empty figures' heads. By her count, they'd made three left turns and should be headed back to the main entrance, but the far wall of the next room was blank. Doorways led left and right.

  "God damn it," Ellie said.

  Dee gazed at lacquered red Japanese armor. "Are we lost?"

  "Keep your voice down." She tried to picture the museum's layout in her head, but the grounds were massive, with scores of rooms on each floor. Something scuffed behind them. She whirled, but the room they'd just left was utterly dark. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Blow out the lantern."

  Hobson frowned. "Did you hear something?"

  "Blow it out!"

  He snuffed the lamp. The room went so dark she thought her eyes might pop from the strain. The scuffing noise repeated, nearer. She could no longer see Dee or Hobson, but she felt them freeze in place, eyes arrested on the doorway beyond. The feet swished over the tile, in the doorway now, not twenty feet away. Ellie's thighs quivered. The figure began humming: Brahms. He chuckled softly, then moved past, continuing toward the center of the museum.

  "Look," Dee said once the scuffling faded to nothing. Ellie wanted to laugh, but she could see the outline of Dee's arm pointing in the darkness. Reoriented toward the way they'd come in, the room to their left was lit by the faintest hint of silver.

  Ellie made her voice so soft she could hardly hear it herself. "Not a word."

  She edged forward, step by step, leading the way with one hand. She passed into the next room. Skylights allowed the pale glimmer of stars to touch the white statues and wood furniture arrayed around the walls. Ellie paused to listen. High above, wind scraped the leaves against the windows.

  From the center of the museum, a man screamed, first in terror, and then in an octave-climbing shriek of pain.

  Dee sucked in air, the precursor of a scream of her own, and clapped her hand to her mouth. "What was that?"

  "Guardian of the museum?" Hobson said, inappropriately amused.

  "Doesn't matter," Ellie said. "Time to go."

  She walked briskly, commanding herself not to run—too noisy—and squeezed past a staircase to the left. Down a long hall, she saw more silver light. The front doors.

  "Cover me," she whispered.

  The two knelt and trained their guns across the expansive room. Ellie bent low and jogged to the doors. There, she got down and braced her gun over one knee while first Dee and then Hobson crossed. Outside, they grabbed their snowshoes and ran without pausing to buckle them on. Their feet sank to the ankles in the snow. Ellie zagged east, then north, then east another block.

  "Do we have a destination in mind?" Hobson said. "Or is it 'away'?"

  "The attack tells us we're on to something. We need to follow up at City Hall, but the sheriff's office will be closed by the time we get downtown." Ellie cast about the street. Her shoes were soaked. "Let's get as far south as we can. Try to find an apartment. Basement will be warmest. We'll return to City Hall in the morning."

  "And what if the trap was set by the sheriff?"

  "Then he'll be right there in arm's reach."

  He looked unconvinced, but didn't argue further. They put on their snowshoes and trudged south down Park Avenue, passing stately hotels and office towers that looked ready to blast into space.

  "Okay, so I'll ask what we're all thinking," Dee said. "Who do you think that was?"

  "The attacker?" Hobson said. "Or the attacker of the attacker?"

  "Either one!"

  "Much as I'd like to imagine it's a vengeful mummy, it was more likely your run-of-the-mill lunatic."

  Ellie's mind kicked out an answer. "The shooter's someone who knows about the slave trade."

  The sheriff crooked a brow. "What if it's the government themselves?"

  "Then why go for a botched ambush five miles away from your base of operations? If they thought we were that much of a threat, they could have marched us inside a courtroom and executed us."

  Hobson tipped his head to the side. "Though the incompetence of the plan would fit your typical federal modus operandi."

  They made it a couple miles before Dee mentioned that her toes were numb. Ellie was about to chide her for not speaking up sooner—the inconvenience of stopping a half hour sooner than Ellie would like would be nothing compared to the inconvenience of being hobbled or disabled by frostbite—but understood, for once, that such lectures by the Mom-Sergeant were likely the exact reason Dee felt compelled to soldier on despite unhealthy levels of discomfort.

  "Please speak up if you ever need a break," she said, in what she hoped was her most non-critical tone. "Or if you see me pushing myself too hard. Quinn needs us healthy."

  "I know." Dee's two words could have been intoned a hundred different ways and Ellie was relieved beyond measure that they weren't defensive, but were instead spoken in soft agreement.

  This parenting shit was hard. Kids bristled at the power imbalance while adults grew frustrated with the knowledge they were even less perfect than their kids believed. Negative vibes all over the place. Hard not to get petty about it. But remembering Quinn helped her stay focused. Forget counseling, what parents of teens really needed to hone their communication skills was the occasional statewide rescue mission.

  They found a Midtown apartment with basement rooms that presumably once housed the super and staff. Ellie got off Dee's shoes and rubbed her feet until the feeling came back. Once her toes were dry and halfway warm, Dee pulled on three pairs of socks. With no heat source, they shut themselves in a single bedroom to trap what body heat they could and slept in layers of pants and socks and long-sleeved shirts.

  It wasn't a fun night, but nobody froze. Ellie woke stiff and tired. Another cold breakf
ast. Microwaves had made things so easy that hot foods eaten cold had become something of a treat—cold pizza, iced coffee—but away from her home and stove, food had lost its joy, repetitive and bland, one more small task to take care of to keep yourself going, no more pleasurable than drying out your socks or packing clean snow into your water bottle.

  Maybe it was the lack of accomplishment, too. She didn't have to catch this food or even cook it for herself. Back in the old days, there had been a certain hunter-gatherer satisfaction in grabbing takeout Chinese and returning home, victorious, to eat your bounty in front of the TV. Of course, they had captured the food they now ate. Violently. Yet it didn't make her feel proud or victorious at all.

  They got off to an early start and arrived at City Hall shortly after nine. The government continued to keep its old hours; a soldier was already out front. He examined their passports and showed them inside. A different receptionist held down the desk today and he tried to bumrush Ellie with the same BS about the island being closed to tourists. As she prepared to pull him across the desk by his tie and lay down the law, he relented and let them upstairs to see the sheriff.

  "You're back," he said mildly.

  Ellie planted herself in front of his desk. "Does that surprise you?"

  "These days, the only thing that would surprise me is if I got to go home early."

  "I'm about to add to your workload. Since you last saw us, someone tried to kill us."

  "Now that's the city I grew up in."

  "Is that why you brought it to City Hall?" she said. "Before we left, an anonymous note requested a meet at the Met. It was an ambush."

  The twinkle faded from the sheriff's eyes. "Who gave you the note?"

  "The gopher who brought us upstairs yesterday. Wasn't him."

  "What about the shooter? Got a name? Description?"

  Ellie shook her head. "By now, there's probably nothing left but bones. But his motive was clear enough: to stop us from tracking down the slavers."