Angelfire

PROLOGUE

Manhattan, New York

^“Your young men will dream dreams…”

Cal Griffin blinks up into my eyes and gives me a look that says he’d willingly crawl out of his skin if that would get him away from me. He glances at the building he is hoping to flee into and tries to pull his arm out of my grasp- not hard enough to succeed.

Around us, the chaos concert of city traffic is deafening. I put my lips close to his ear. “I’m telling you this because you talk to me, don’t just look through. No such thing as coincidences. It’s omens, Cal. Something’s coming.” A line of verse leaps into my head and off the tip of my tongue before I can stop it: “ ‘Metal wings will fail, leather ones prevail.’ ”

Cal stares at me, puzzled, wondering what I’m blathering about. That makes two of us.

I let go of him and step aside. “You keep your head low.”

Cal nods mutely, turns to the doors. Just before he enters, he glances back, face going ashy when he sees me watching him.

“I’ll see you later, Goldie,” he murmurs.

“If there is a later,” I say, and he falters, missing the revolving door. He has to wait for it to come around again.

I watch him vanish into the building, lost among all the

2 / Marc Scott Zicree amp; Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

other Suits. He doesn’t believe me, of course. Can’t blame him, but I had to try.

I wipe some powdered sugar from my chin. Time to go through the Dumpsters in search of another Gillette. This is a use-it-then-lose-it society. There are always throwaways.

The street empties as the Suits swarm into their termite towers. Anyone looking at me now would find it hard to believe I was once on my way to becoming one of them. I hadn’t known myself then, hadn’t known a strange truth about the world. Onion. The world is like an onion. One thing with many layers. Stinking or succulent, depending on how you look at it.

Good metaphor. I am still capable of good metaphors. Any other time, I’d be absurdly pleased with it, but not today. Today, my cleverness offers no satisfaction.

Because something’s coming and it’s going to be bad.

I spy Doc Lysenko manning his hot dog cart nearby. Someone else I should warn. I take a step in his direction, but with a suddenness that steals my breath, all the oxygen has been sucked out of the world. My legs threaten to fold up under me and I put a hand out to a nearby wall. Heat radiates from it-from the pavement-and the din of the city is like Thor’s hammer.

What a world, what a world. Who would’ve thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Shit, Goldman, get a grip.

I send my mind into a ritual I started when I was nine: I take the sturdy brown tome down from the bookshelf. Needing inviolable privacy, I go into an upstairs bathroom and perch on the closed lid of the toilet. I open the book-Ency-clopedia Britannica, Volume One-and begin reading: This letter has stood at the head of the alphabet during the whole of the period through which it can be traced historically…

Non compos mentis, my sister called me, and told me to look it up. I did, and then read from A to Z, passing through all the points between. A safe haven, a fortress where I couldn’t hear Mom and Dad snarling psychobabble and legalese at each other. Order from chaos. I was transported. By words.

Words have power. Rituals have power.

My mind steadies. I have to get home, to hunker down and wait while there’s still time. I slip into the narrow alley behind me, let it shield me from the noise. Dumpsters radiate hot garbage smell. Funny how, even now, my nose is so easily offended. You’d think, given where I’ve been living lo, these many years, my sense of smell would’ve gone on permanent vacation.

I mentally run over the possible routes back to the underground, discarding Rockefeller Center for Grand Central. This time of day there’ll be less scrutiny, easier to slip into the darkness. Just gotta be careful not to touch the third rail.

There is a rustling behind me, an odd, whispery sound.

Intriguing.

I turn. Wadded candy wrappers, stained sheets of the Post, and bits of excelsior that have tumbled out of the Dumpster are starting to swirl about in a minitornado, gathering speed. What’s wrong with this picture is that there’s no wind. None. In spite of this logistical oversight, the trash is still dancing in the air.

Abruptly the force swells, pushing the Dumpsters back and forth on their wheels, their heavy metal lids rising and then banging down again and again, like in a bad horror flick. My skin feels prickly; the smell of ozone charges the air.

Not yet, I think, please, not yet.

Doesn’t matter that I’ve been expecting this; I’m terrified. Above me there’s a crackling, snapping noise. And it ain’t Rice Krispies. I look up to see blue electrical discharges whipping about in the sky. Dark clouds roil, casting a yellow-gray pall over Manhattan, over the alley, over me. I feel incredibly small and watched-by what, I don’t know and don’t want to know.

The blue lightning is ferocious, slashing in all directions with a sound like ice sheets splintering. And behind it another, greater sound, a low roar that vibrates through me, growing in power and rumbling the ground. I want to run, to hide, but I can’t. I’m not even sure there’s anyplace I can hide.

Sudden desire overwhelms me, a compulsion to leave the shelter of the alley, to see what is happening to the city. This is not my desire; this comes from outside, but it so invades me that I feel imprisoned, shackled from the inside out.

The pavement beneath my feet heaves and buckles, as if some massive serpent is struggling to burst forth from below. Obeying my captor’s voice, I fight my way back to the alley mouth and peer out.

The sky is alive with blue lightning. It spits its hatred down at the city, frenzied fingers reaching out to every spire. The roar is deafening, a spike through my head. I clap my hands to my ears, but that does nothing. The sound is in my head, too, and now it rises to a scream.

The buildings are melting. Like ice cream cones on a hot day, dripping down-the entire city is liquefying. Proud towers turn to slag as the lightning dances its mad dance and the clouds enfold it like a shroud.

My mouth is open and I think I’m screaming, but I can’t hear it against the shriek of the city. I fold in on myself, covering my eyes, rocking, defenseless. In what I know are my last moments, I surrender to it, realizing that no matter how much I prepare, how much I might know, in the end it will do with me whatever it wishes.

I open up to it, and the world falls away.

There’s a jolt, as if the earth is taking one last token stand, and I realize I’m the only one screaming. I clamp my mouth shut, force myself to stop, and cautiously open my eyes.

The buildings are still upright; people still crowd the streets; but the cars, moments ago surging and huffing, are suddenly going nowhere. Sure, I might be looking at normal gridlock, but I know that’s not what this is. The normal sounds of Manhattan have stopped, leaving something as close to silence as this city has known since Peter Stuyvesant stepped off the boat and wowed the locals.

And I, Herman Goldman, saw it coming.

I find my feet, supporting myself against the once again solid brick and mortar of the nearest building. “Your old men will see visions…” I murmur, and wonder if I can still score some antipsychotics at the Roosevelt’s Free Clinic.