Uncertain Allies

40

Wind roared as I fell through the sky. Smoke and fire blurred around me in a dirty smear of orange and black. I was going to die. No rush of images cascaded through my mind, no marching panorama of my life’s highlights. I thought how strangely beautiful the Guildhouse looked as it crumbled in smoke and flame. I closed my eyes, feeling the rush of gravity pull me to the street below. It wasn’t going to be pretty. I hoped I didn’t hit anyone. At least I was going out in a blaze.

A blue haze of essence around me, the essence of the Dead coming to call me home. My eyes flew open as a turbulent air knocked against me, batting me from side to side. The fractured street pavement grew closer, larger, before wind shear blurred tears into my eyes. Something pressed against my back, like I wasn’t falling fast enough and needed a push. The blue essence blossomed around me as I rushed into the embrace of the Dead. The ground moved below, a nauseating shift toward my feet, then flashed by as I skimmed over the street and surged into the air.

Remain calm, Ceridwen sent.

I laughed. Remaining calm was so obviously the right course. I had fallen off a burning building and plunged toward my death. I laughed with a sound tinged with madness and disbelief as rough hands gripped my back.

Ceridwen banked away from the smoking building and set down at the opposite end of the square. Chaos filled the streets, people fighting with essence or scattering in fear. Police officers tried to enforce order, only to stare in stark awe when they caught sight of the Guildhouse.

The Guildhouse burned. The upper stories were gone, lost in smoldering stone heaped on the street and sidewalk. Gaping holes belched smoke from where towers used to be. Guild agents swarmed and hovered, darting in to retrieve anyone that appeared in a window or broken opening. The ground trembled, a deep rumble that intensified. The Guildhouse contracted about the middle, a slow, inward shift of wall and tower. With the sound of a raging storm, the Guildhouse shed the remains of its outer walls, pulling the rest of the building with it.

A towering pall of angry gray smoke shot from the implosion. I thrust my hands out, an instinctive warding off of the heat and debris, as a boiling mountain of ash and smoke rolled toward me. My body shield triggered—my full body shield—bursting around me in a crystalline barrier of deep gold. The smoke spilled over me like a wave hitting a cliff, then raced up the street and swallowed the remaining fighters. It passed, becoming less dense, but not dispersing.

My head burned with a cold fire. I trembled with power, but a power I didn’t understand. Something had changed. I not only had my body shield back, I could control it. I didn’t have time to question it but was glad of it. The dark mass felt different, like it was generating energy instead of absorbing it. My skin danced with an electric sheen.

Ceridwen lay on the ground not far off, no spark of essence in her body. I leaned over and felt for a pulse. She was dead again. I stared for a moment, then left her there. She was Dead. She would wake up in the morning as if nothing had happened.

I stalked toward what was left of the Guildhouse. Firefighters wandered through the smoke, empty-handed and helpless, their trucks and gear buried under rubble. Shattered walls rose ghostlike around me. I circled around burning stone to the front entrance. It was gone, nothing left but the fractured remains of the dragon head. The lobby was gone, too, a crater of fire burning where bored receptionists once sat.

Shocked, I fell to my knees. I stared, trying to make sense of what I was seeing—what I was not seeing. Endless piles of stone and fire rose around me. Smoke bled through the filter of my body shield and irritated my eyes. The only sounds were the crackle of fire and the high-pitched beeping of rescue-worker alarms. I don’t know how long I sat there before someone touched my shoulder.

“Connor? Are you all right, buddy?”

I lifted my head, the world asserting itself around me like I was waking from a deep sleep. Murdock stared at me, his face filthy and scratched.

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you sure? You were screaming,” he said.

“She was in the basement,” I said.

Horror etched across his face as he stared into the fire. I got to my feet. “I have to get to the subway,” I said.

“It’s collapsed,” he said, his voice rough.

“I have to get to the subway,” I said.

I wandered out into the square. Haze filled the air. I didn’t remember anything about the walk from Park Square to the Boylston Street T station except stumbling through debris, Murdock beside me like a shadow. Transit workers stood at the entrance, directing people several blocks away to where buses waited. A man stood in front of me as I tried to enter.

“Move,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice, but it sounded odd in my ears. His face went blank, almost ashen, and he stepped aside. Murdock caught my arm as I walked down the stairs where a gate was open to the platform. I didn’t bother using the gap in the fence, but walked onto the tracks and into the tunnel. Smoke trailed along the ceiling. I kept my body shield on until I reached the concrete niche, and we stepped through the glamour.

It was a long, dark walk down the stairs to the tunnel passage. Dim light marked the end, a dull glow of emergency lights. Murdock and I entered the empty office. We stared at dust hanging in air, the computer monitor flickering blue. I went into the outside corridor and froze.

Meryl ran down the hall and into my arms. I hugged her in shocked relief like I had never hugged anyone before. She tilted her face toward mine, surprise coming over her features.

“Holy shit, what happened to your eyes?” she asked.