by N. D. Wilson
The boy led them down an enclosed hallway to another stair. And then another. The last stair was narrow and long and wooden and unlit. To Antigone, it felt like a mine shaft.
Some of the children stopped at the bottom, but most didn’t hesitate. They climbed and laughed and shouted, reveling in the parade and the sound of marching feet. The flood of them pushed Antigone up, and extra hands even helped with the bicycle.
At the top, they reached a simple wooden door.
Rupert tried the knob. Then he stepped back and kicked it.
The door smashed open into the back of a janitor’s closet. Plaster exploded into the little room as shelves fell. Brooms and buckets tumbled to the floor. Rupert and Antigone led the children through the rubble to a metal door on the other side of the closet. It was locked, but on the inside. Antigone unlocked it, pulled it open, and a sudden surge of children forced her through.
She was standing in the middle of a wax museum, crowded with tourists. The boy with the bicycle stepped past her and set his bike down on the red carpet.
“Goodbye,” he said, and he pedaled away. A family with cameras jumped out of his way.
The rush of children flooded after him. Security guards began to shout.
“C’mon, then,” Rupert said. He took Antigone’s hand and led her, still limping, in the other direction.
People stared at his bloody shirt and battered face. They stared at the girl in the tattered shirt with the glistening pearl skin underneath. They stared, and they stepped out of the way.
Rupert and Antigone rode down an escalator and walked through a massive glistening lobby crowded with wax statues and lines and concessions. They pushed through glass doors and stepped onto a hot sidewalk beside the biggest, busiest street Antigone had ever seen.
Buildings on both sides scraped the sky.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“New York City,” Rupert said. “Could be better, could be worse.” He grabbed a man passing by and talking on a cell phone. “Beg pardon, bruv,” he said, pulling a small gold coin from a pocket on his leg. “This is worth about five hundred of your dollars … could you spare the phone?”
The man took the coin, and his eyes widened in surprise. “This is Spanish,” he said. “It’s worth a lot more than five. Where did you get it?”
Rupert shrugged, already punching in numbers. He turned away, pressing the phone to his ear.
The stranger studied Antigone. “Are you two okay?”
Antigone nodded. “Better now.”
“That’s an interesting shirt,” he said, pointing awkwardly at her stomach. “The, uh, the under-one.”
Antigone looked down. Her buttons had blown off, and her shirt was mostly open. In the sunlight, she could see shapes woven into the perfect silk, white on white, silver on silver—her protectors. A bull with a man’s head and tremendous wings. A snake with six wings. A regal-looking woman with young trees growing in her hands.
The shapes were moving.
“Thanks,” said Antigone. She smiled and closed her tattered safari shirt.
“Liv?” Rupert said. “Pick up, it’s Rupe. Pick up—Liv! No, don’t start. Listen, I’m in the city, and I desperately need to not be.” He looked at Antigone and smiled. “Forty-Second Street. I need a run down south. Immediately. Still flying that tiltrotor?”
“Would you sell it?” the stranger asked Antigone. “The shirt?”
“What?” Antigone asked. “No!”
“Not Brooklyn,” Rupert was saying. “Deep south. Louisiana south. Right.” He nodded into the phone, clicked it off, and tossed it back to the stranger.
“Thanks, mate. Tigs?” Wincing and biting his lip, he began to stride down the sidewalk. Antigone jogged to keep up.
“See that building?” Rupert was pointing to a glistening glass tower taller than anything Antigone had ever seen, but still not the tallest one she could see now. “We have ten minutes to get to the top,” he said. “That’s when our ride will be there, and she won’t be able to wait.”
twenty
TO WAR
PRESSING HIS HEAD against the window of the plane, Cyrus looked down at the massive factory as they made another pass over it. The two planes had circled the decrepit factory more times than he wanted to count—blazing in low, past the roofline, over the swamp sweltering in the afternoon sun, and always swinging back up and around for another pass.
Cyrus twisted Radu Bey’s heavy gold ring around his knuckle. His stomach was in his throat. Antigone was alive. Rupert was alive. Arachne had seen them both. If he managed to capture Phoenix, they might stay that way. If he didn’t …
He looked around the cabin. Jeb and Diana were up in the cockpit. Nolan was leaning against the seat in front of him, pale arms crossed and head down. The two Livingstone boys were whispering to each other—Silas was rubbing his scarred eyebrow with the butt of a knife, and George was checking the chambers on a battered old revolver. Dennis—the porter had insisted on coming—was watching them both from across the aisle and fidgeting with his bowler hat.
Across the aisle from Cyrus, Captain John Smith was humming loudly, with his eyes glued to his window and iron Vlad on his lap, resting against the Captain’s polished gold breastplate. Horace was in front of him, winding his pocket watch and shaking it by his ear. He was wearing two borrowed six-shooters on a belt, and a blunderbuss lay across his knees. Beside him, Arachne sat with her spider bag in her lap. She had no weapons, and Cyrus had no idea why she’d wanted to come. But she hadn’t listened to anyone who had suggested that she stay behind with Jax and Mrs. Boone any more than she’d considered Mr. Boone’s offer to give her a gun.
Dan was in the front, his arms above the cockpit door, talking to Jeb and Diana. Cyrus didn’t think his brother looked like someone with a heart problem—if people with heart problems even had a look. He looked ready for the Olympics. Even relaxed, his arms had muscles like oak roots just beneath the skin. A boxer? A wrestler? Something the opposite of sickly, at least.
The other plane had already landed downstream and out of sight. Alan Livingstone and Robert Boone had flown it alone, and they would set their trap alone. Cyrus was nervous about that. Rupert had said that Robert Boone was one to hang back and wait in ambush, and that’s exactly the plan that Boone had insisted on. At the first sign of trouble, Phoenix always ran—that’s what Boone had said, and Cyrus knew he was right. And now he would run into a trap. But Cyrus was still worried. He would have been more comfortable creeping in quietly, rather than trying to spook Phoenix on purpose.
Jeb and Diana turned the plane out of a final circle and started their descent toward the river, just upstream of the wooden factory on its forest of pylons. There were no real roads to and from the place, and no trucks or cars visible from the air. Not one person had so much as set foot outside the factory, but the big loading door overlooking the river that had been open when they arrived was shut now. And beneath it there were two boats tied to the factory pylons, and one seaplane.
After a few passes, Robert Boone had told Jeb over the radio that the river was the only route they needed to close.
Nolan sat up, stretching.
Dan was walking back down the aisle. He dropped into the seat beside Cyrus.
Cyrus’s chest was tight. His whole body was tight. His knee was bouncing. He yawned slowly—he couldn’t help it. His nerves were pretending to relax. “What will we do if Phoenix doesn’t run?”
“Our best, little brother.” Dan slapped his knee. “We’ll get him. And we’ll get Antigone. She’ll make it, okay?”
“Did you dream that?” Cyrus looked into his brother’s strangely dark eyes. “Or are you just saying it?”
Dan shook his head. “I believe it. But, Cyrus, there’s something else. Dad …”
“I know,” said Cyrus. “You told me Dad’s down there. I don’t want to think about it.” Cyrus looked back out his window. The trees were rising. He couldn’t see the river. The plane tipped
and he shut his eyes, swallowing down a throatful of sick. Cold sweat beaded up on his face. He could see the old kitchen door closing behind his father. His last real glimpse.
“What if Phoenix … what if before we get there …” Cyrus breathed, trying to quiet his queasy stomach. He looked at his brother. “What if Dad’s already alive again?”
Dan shook his head. “We can’t let it happen,” he said quietly. “It would be evil, and Dad would hate it.”
“Even if Phoenix brought him back,” Cyrus said, “he wouldn’t be bad. He couldn’t be.”
“He wouldn’t,” Dan said. “But his coming back would be. His body would be a cage, and Phoenix could make it do horrible things with him stuck inside it. That’s what I think, anyway.”
The plane touched the water. Cyrus rocked forward as they slowed.
Dan gripped his brother’s shoulder. “We miss him, Cy. But we shouldn’t want him back, not like that.”
Cyrus nodded, but he wasn’t sure. The plane had completely stopped, and he wanted to throw up more than ever.
The Captain stood up and punched the ceiling. “Ho, I’ve had enough of this sky machining. Open the ark.”
Jeb came back into the cabin and threw open a side door. Together, he and Diana slid three heavy waterproof cases down the aisle and out into the water. Then they looked at Cyrus. Nolan looked at Cyrus, his ancient eyes curious. Arachne and Horace and Dennis looked at Cyrus.
Cyrus shut his eyes. He felt Dan’s hands between his shoulder blades and exhaled. He opened his eyes.
“Right,” he said. “Dennis and Horace and Arachne, stay with the plane. If Phoenix tries to escape upstream … well, your job is to make sure he doesn’t. We have to send him downstream to Boone and Alan.”
“Aye, aye,” said Horace, saluting.
Jeb opened a black case, revealing a fat tube and leather-coated rockets branded with different symbols—smoke, fire, lightning. “These will stop the plane or the boats,” he said. “If he gets out, burn that cloak. Remember, bullets are no good against Phoenix.”
“Can that be a hand-cannon?” the Captain asked. Vlad was resting on his left hip.
“It rests on the shoulder,” said Jeb. “Or you can rig at the waist, too.”
The Captain rubbed his gold breastplate. “Perchance you have another?” he asked. He beamed when Jeb nodded.
“The rest of us are going in,” Cyrus said. “We don’t have to kill or capture anybody; we just have to spook them into the boats. Remember to stay behind the Captain and Nolan.”
Nolan leaned against the back of a seat and split half a smile. “For the record, we do feel pain. We just don’t die.”
“Yeah, well, we do both,” said Jeb. “Let’s get going.”
“Right,” said Cyrus. A wave of dizziness rippled through him. He was going to throw up. Now it was just a question of where. Gagging, swallowing, his jaw clamped shut, Cyrus pushed past the Captain and staggered down the aisle past Horace and Nolan, Dennis and Diana.
At the door, Jeb stepped out of the way. Cyrus dove into the river, breaking through the warm, slick surface and kicking deeper, to where the water was cool. There, out of the light and out of sight, he threw up his nervousness in a cloud.
He surfaced, spitting, beside one of the floating cases. A cluster of faces watched him from the door of the plane. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed the case and began swimming it toward the bank.
No more thinking.
Phoenix stood beside the shallow pools, leaning heavily on his cane. Only two of the five still held bodies. Around his feet, the floor was slick with water. Sweat rolled down his nose as he pushed his wet hair out of his face with his stump. In the last hour, he had finished six more of his own men.
He could barely stand.
At his feet, Oliver, the last of the Laughlins, floated in the center pool. While his men had only needed a single cycle to meet Phoenix’s needs, more was planned for his nephew. Like the men, Oliver had died under the first pulsing barrage from the needles and wires. Like the others, he had been brought back—a young convict had worked well enough in the end. Unlike the others, more needles and wires had been attached to the new Oliver, this time focusing on the head. Oliver’s mind had needed … expanding. Now Oliver was floating peacefully—young, strong, pale, dead—ready to wake again. Now Phoenix needed a transmortal.
Not Ponce. Phoenix would use the pink-shirted Spaniard only as a last resort. He needed someone stronger. Someone who would arrive later.
The two planes roared overhead again, dust snowing down from the shaken rafters. The factory doors had been closed and bolted after the planes’ first pass. The necessary windows had been sealed. All but two of his men had scattered to their defensive positions.
Phoenix wasn’t worried. These planes did not belong to the dragons.
Sniffing, ignoring the wobbling weariness in his knees, Phoenix hobbled away from Oliver to the only other pool that held a body.
Lawrence Smith. Phoenix had always planned to graft the Smith line into his new humanity. They were forever defiant, trusting themselves and their own blood before they listened to the winds of the world or the word of the Brendan or the vote of the Keepers. As a man, Lawrence had needed so few improvements. But mortal mankind itself was still in need of so many.
Long ago, Harriet and Circe Smith, Lawrence’s sisters, had stubbornly died rather than serve Phoenix. And Lawrence himself had turned away from the Order and its enemies completely. He had walked away from everything, from his history, from his blood, from his friends, from the treasures accumulated by generations of Smiths—all for a girl with eyes like jungle shade. And in that, he had acted like a true Smith. Like the Captain had acted when he’d Buried himself. Like dozens of others had acted before him. Smiths always seemed to be turning their backs on something, and frequently everything.
Phoenix was surprised by the chuckle that sprung from his own throat.
Now Lawrence Smith would turn his back on death.
Phoenix studied the floating man with his icy skin and bullet-puckered chest. Even a once great Explorer of the Order of Brendan could be struck down by a few flying shards of metal—bullets from a gun—and then swallowed by the cold water of the Pacific. The soul fled the body so easily. It was a flaw that could be mended.
The third convict Phoenix had tried to use now lay dead beside Lawrence’s pool—dead as quickly as the others, and there weren’t many more. It was a puzzle. Lawrence had been friends with Skelton. He’d had rogues for friends planet-wide. A convict should have been sufficient.
Phoenix couldn’t change a corpse. He needed Lawrence alive before he could make any improvements. And of course, the improvements would kill him again. So Phoenix needed two human batteries before Lawrence would become the Lawrence he wanted. He had one, but if he used him now, he might not be able to find another. Why go to the trouble of bringing Lawrence back and improving him, only to shove him back into a freezer?
Frustrated, Phoenix slapped at the water in the pool with the end of his cane. The splash spattered onto his hand and wrist, and for a moment, he was surprised at how cool the water had become. Lawrence’s body was thawing.
Phoenix beckoned to the two men who had stayed with him, both freshly born into bestial speed and bestial strength. One was curiously fingering the gills on the side of his neck.
“Get rid of this body,” Phoenix said, kicking the dead convict at his feet. “Bring me Alfred Mist.”
The men jumped forward and picked up the body. Phoenix turned to the little Mist girl, asleep in her chair in the corner, head lolling. Pythia was on the floor beside her.
The little girl would want to see her father die. Phoenix hobbled over and raised his cane to wake her, then paused. Waking her would just mean more kicking and screaming. He lowered his cane. The girl didn’t need to see anything.
Antigone pressed a cold glass bottle of soda against her split lower lip. She was in the cabin of an old ai
rplane that reminded her of the lobby of the Archer Motel.
The five seats in the cabin were cream leather, cracked with time. Behind her, there was a little bathroom with a carpeted wall and a mirror dotted with gold fleck. In front of her, past a little metal Coke cooler full of drinks, Rupert Greeves sat in the copilot’s chair wearing a headset. He was arguing with Liv, the crazy old woman with the long white scarf and long, caramel-colored coat flying the plane. It was incredibly hot in the cabin. Antigone didn’t understand how the lady could stand to be in her coat. It had one patch on its shoulder—a green shield with a woman riding a jumping dolphin stitched in white thread.
It was hard to say what the strangest part of the day had been. It should have been the dragon, or seeing the moving shapes that Arachne had woven into her shirt. But the strangest part had actually been racing through New York City with Rupert. After a year at Ashtown, Antigone had almost forgotten that she belonged in this world, the one with taxicabs and skyscrapers and hot dog vendors and telephones and overflowing trash cans.
No one had paid any attention to them when they’d been jogging along the sidewalks. That changed when they entered the tall glass building. The lobby was large, marble, and lined with bookshelves behind glass. The only way to get to the elevators had been over the turnstiles and past the security guards.
Rupert hadn’t even hesitated. While people in suits yelled sir! sir! sir! he’d hopped the barrier and boarded an elevator, Antigone right behind him. Three floors up, Rupert switched elevators. Three more, and they took the fire stairs up the next four. Sweating and breathing hard, they’d stepped out onto a floor with a small crowd of frustrated people complaining that the elevators had stopped working.
Rupert and Antigone had followed them back into the fire stairs and up to a floor with a bridge to another elevator lobby. And as if their bloody and torn clothing hadn’t made them conspicuous enough already, the amused and cheerful red-winged blackbird spent the whole time singing on Antigone’s shoulder.
