Echo City Page 23

  —which came crashing home when the well-dressed white bouncer at the front door stopped St. Clair with a careless palm on her chest. "Can't go in there," he said.

  St. Clair looked down at his hand until he removed it, then looked up at him with half-lidded snake's eyes. "I have business with Tweed."

  His gaze swept over both of us, withering with scorn. "You don't have any business here, girl."

  Right. Yes. That. In this era, the only black people allowed in the place were the entertainment; otherwise it was whites-only. Feeling gut-punched, I took a step back.

  St. Clair, however, stood her ground. I felt a soft wisp of ice thread its way down my spine, and realized a moment later that it wasn't my imagination, just as she laid her hand on the bouncer's arm.

  What happened next, happened fast. The air around her turned cold—I could feel the sharp backlash against my face—and the bouncer went thin, transparent, and then wisped away, just like the Tiger I'd dispatched with my sword a week ago.

  St. Clair opened her eyes and I glimpsed, very briefly, her face contort in a spasm of agony before she smoothed it over.

  "Pity it wasn't Dave or Bruno," she said tightly, flexing her hand. "They know me. Come on."

  Walking into a whites-only club in the 1920s did not seem like a prescription for a long and healthy life; on the other hand, neither did disagreeing with a woman who'd just killed a guy in front of me.

  "Okay," I said faintly, and followed her.

  Chapter 18

  We skirted the wall outside the tables. Despite her bravado, it looked like St. Clair didn't want to provoke another confrontation if she could help it. The stiff, measured way she was walking gave me a clue as to why. She'd said it hurt to draw energy. From the stiff set of her shoulders, she was in more than a little pain right now.

  The band onstage were playing something I didn't recognize, something fast and peppy, providing the soundtrack for a line of high-kicking chorus girls. The band wore crisp tuxedos, and all of them, as well as the chorus girls, were black. All the rest of the faces in the place were white, except for the two of us.

  A waiter angled our way, face thunderous, then slowed nervously; he clearly recognized St. Clair. She murmured something to him under the music that sent him scurrying for the back. Meanwhile, I tried to look inconspicuous, inasmuch as that's possible for a 5'9" shaven-headed black woman surrounded by hostile white people. And I couldn't help observing that they were noticing me. The Cotton Club crowd looked a lot more there than the run-of-the-mill Shadow New York population. Nearly everyone in sight was solid, not transparent. They wore evening dress in a mix of eras, tuxedos and sleek designer gowns mixing with tailcoats and top hats.

  The lights were bright around the stage, but the tables were lit only by candles, leaving the edges of the room deeply cloaked in shadow. The hostile attention of the patrons was bad enough, but more disturbing by far was a powerful sense that the shadows themselves were watching me.

  I tried to focus on the stage instead. The only other thing about the Cotton Club I could remember was that Duke Ellington had played there, and I wondered if the piano player in the band could possibly be him. I might not be a huge fan of early jazz, but the chance to watch the Duke Ellington play, if only for a few minutes, was something I wasn't going to pass up.

  The chorus girls kicked their way offstage, the band wrapped up their number, and a scattering of applause rippled through the crowd. The pianist stood and bowed—it was Ellington, I'd bet anything—and asked for requests.

  "Turkey in the Straw!" a drunk voice from the front called out. There was some laughter and someone seconded it.

  They had Duke Ellington onstage and they wanted minstrel songs. I turned my face away, just as a heavyset man rose from a table at the very edge of the stage lights and wended his way towards us, swinging a gold-headed cane as he walked. A rippled hush followed in his wake—tables going quiet, then starting up their talk again after he had passed.

  So this was William "Boss" Tweed, one-time architect of New York corruption. He approached us, and as he had in Gwyn's bookstore, he gave off a general sense of bigness. Tweed was an imposing man, but it wasn't merely his heavy build that made him seem that way. This was a man who was important and knew it, a man who didn't have to throw his weight around—metaphorically or otherwise—because everyone already knew that he could. He had a red beard and the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen.

  "Queenie," he said cheerfully. "It's a pleasure, my dear. Oh, for me?" He took St. Clair's hand and pressed it to his lips. The band had started up again—I didn't know the song, but it wasn't "Turkey in the Straw." Tweed's voice was not raised indecorously loud, but it carried easily through the music.

  St. Clair's eyes closed and her body sagged. Even without the help of my second sight, I saw something ripple around her fingers and his lips, a little wobble like a heat-shimmer on summer asphalt. Then she retrieved her hand, moving more easily, and gave him one of her cool smiles. "Bill. I thought you were going to do away with the club's policy, as we talked about."

  "Ah, Queenie." He smiled and spread his arms. "You know me. I don't care about that. Black, white, yellow, or blue, it's all the same to me. But nobody colored wants to come here anyway, and some of the regulars would object. You know how it is."

  "I do indeed know how it is," St. Clair agreed. "That being the case, I wouldn't mind having a conversation somewhere more agreeable. Buy me a drink?"

  "And your friend?" he said, tipping his head to me.

  "With me, yes."

  For the first startled instant I thought it was my imagination that the shadows had begun to move, but they flowed with quicksilver speed, wrapping intangibly around my legs and St. Clair's. I could feel them as a faint cobwebby coldness on my skin. I knew my eyes had gone huge, and I looked to St. Clair for a reaction, but she was calm and composed, so I tried my best not to go into a panic attack.

  I was doing okay—not great, but okay—until the shadows broke, like a wave, over our heads and took us away.

  There was an instant of overwhelming cold, a horrible crawling sensation like swimming in ice-cold live eels, and then I was standing, wobbly and shaken, on an immaculate marble floor. I trembled uncontrollably, drenched in sweat.

  St. Clair gave me an amused glance and strolled with Tweed, her heels clicking on the floor. I took some deep breaths and hurried to catch up with them.

  Wherever we were, it made me think of an old-time flat model of the Earth, with the part of the Earth being played by a vast marble floor, tiled in stark black and white. A fat spire rose up through the middle of the floor and supported an inverted dome arching over our heads. The dome was made of glass panels, giving us a spectacular 360-degree view of the aurora sky, with the New York skyline spread out all around us.

  This was what finally tipped me off to where I was. When I first saw Shadow New York, I'd looked across Central Park from Seth's apartment window and saw what looked like a huge, reflective snowglobe on top of the Empire State Building. Now I was inside it.

  A golden spiral staircase wrapped around the central support spire, climbing up to the underside of a buttonlike anchor at the dome's apex. Tipping my head back and trying to estimate the scale of the dome, I realized that what looked like a little button from down here was probably a couple hundred feet above me, at least, and had to be the size of a spacious apartment. In fact ... I thought I could see guardrails. That was exactly what it was: an apartment, viewing platform, or perhaps both, located at the very top of the Empire State Building.

  And really, where else would a self-crowned King of New York and wannabe supervillain choose to live?

  Also, the elusive fishhook tug in my chest was aimed right at it. Just to check, I closed my eyes, turned around, focused and opened them again. Yep. The feeling still wasn't quite as sharp as normal, but it was much stronger than in Harlem or Central Park. The sword was definitely up there, St. Clair was right, but at the momen
t, there wasn't a thing I could do about it. After all, what was I supposed to do, climb a few hundred stairs and cat-burgle my way into Tweed's bedroom with him right downstairs?

  I looked around wildly for the closest thing I had to an ally in this place. Tweed and St. Clair had tapped and heel-clicked their way over to a fountain, where they were talking quietly. Like a vast, open museum, the dome contained a variety of art pieces to appeal to Tweed's expensive tastes. Some were ordinary enough statues, including a replica of Michelangelo's David (at least I assumed it was a replica). Others were a bit more extreme. There was a large sunken garden featuring stone nymphs and ornate iron benches, a forty-foot-tall orrery with slowly rotating brass spheres gliding on well-oiled clockworks, and even a cage containing a pacing, bored-looking tiger.

  I looked carefully at it, but it appeared to be a normal tiger, and a well-fed one, its muscles rippling under a glossy hide.

  "Her, eh?" Tweed said, loudly enough that his voice reached me as he turned in my direction. "Kay, is it?"

  "Kay Darrow," I said, and added quickly, "Mr. Tweed." I wasn't about to call him sir, but it never hurt to be polite in someone's home. Especially when they might try to kill you.

  "Call me Bill, since we're going to be friends," he said. "Thank you, Queenie. I'll definitely remember this when it comes to handing out favors."

  He touched her hand, and St. Clair's eyes half-closed in a lazy, catlike expression of bliss. As soon as Tweed broke the contact and turned away, however, her face changed. If looks could kill, the look she gave the back of his head would have blown a hole through it.

  And Tweed was smiling at me. I wondered how scared that smile ought to make me. Pretty damn scared appeared to be the answer, especially when he said in a cheerful tone, "I can't wait to hear about the sword you're here to steal," and my stomach froze into a pit of ice.

  "I have business to get back to," St. Clair said sharply.

  "Yes, of course. Thank you for the gift, my dear." He waved a dismissive hand without looking at her, and St. Clair's shadow, which had been radiating faintly from her feet in the diffuse light, took on an impenetrable inky quality and slid greasily up her legs. Behind Tweed's back, she winked at me. And then the shadow rose over her head and instantly dropped back to the floor, like a magician's trick, and seeped away to become part of the black-and-white tiling.

  I stared at the place where she'd been, and then at Tweed.

  "Something to eat?" he asked. "Tea?"

  My throat was bone dry. "Tea would be good," I managed weakly. I'd just been sold out. Or ... something? Here I was in Tweed's inner sanctum, and I knew right where the sword was. St. Clair had done exactly what she promised to do, leaving aside the bit where she was apparently planning all along to tell the bad guy what I was up to.

  Shadow flooded the marble floor and drained away, leaving a low table, two chairs, and a tidy buffet of scones, fruit, and a tea service on a silver tray. Tweed poured steaming tea into a shell-thin porcelain cup. "Sugar?" he asked. "Lemon?"

  "Sugar, please," I said faintly. He added a cube of sugar with little silver tongs and handed me the cup. His fingers brushed mine, and although they were warm and dry, I had to fight not to recoil as if from the touch of a slug.

  "Um. Thank you." The tea smelled like ordinary black tea. I wondered if it was safe to drink, then decided that if he wanted to kill me, he didn't have to bother with poison. I took a polite sip.

  "Queenie informs me that you're the owner of the sword I have upstairs, and the only person who can use it."

  I choked on my tea. "That's right," I said when I managed to stop coughing. Why lie? At least he seemed to be friendly. For now.

  Tweed clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Make yourself at home, by all means. There are lavatory facilities behind the stair. I need to return to my business luncheon, and I hate to be interrupted in the middle of a concert. We'll talk later."

  With that, and a quick rush of shadow, he was gone.

  I put aside my cup and knelt to touch the marble where he had been. It was cool and no different from ordinary marble as far as I could tell.

  And so I was alone in Tweed's inner sanctum, with the sword upstairs.

  Trick? Had to be.

  Still ...

  The tiger in the cage gave a low feline cough and lay down. "You trying to tell me something?" I asked, but it laid its head on its paws and ignored me.

  I checked my phone, just to see if Shadow New York had magically sprouted cell towers, but no such luck.

  Maybe Tweed leaving me here alone was some kind of test, and I was about to fail it utterly and get myself killed, but ...

  I sprinted for the stairs leading up to the sword.

  My eagerness wore off in the first twenty steps. By the time I reached fifty, my fear of heights had kicked in full bore. The spiral staircase had a railing, but I could see between the steps all the way down to the marble tile below—and, worse, the higher I climbed, the more of the city I could see through the dome. We were, after all, on top of the Empire State Building. I kept having to stop, lean against the cool solidity of the central pillar, and wait until my legs stopped shaking and my heart rate slowed to something sane before I could keep going.

  At least going up, I could look up, mostly. Getting back down was going to be hell.

  I had no idea how long I climbed. All I knew was that my legs ached fiercely and the sunken gardens and statuary on the marble floor looked like toys by the time I reached the top of the stairs. The staircase ended in a landing some ten feet across—it hadn't even been visible from below—and a door with an ornate cast-iron handle set into the side of the pillar.

  I tried it.

  Locked. Of course.

  I still had Lily-Bell's iron key in my pocket, so just in case it might work, I tried it. No luck. I cursed, wrestled with the handle, cursed some more, kicked it, and then threw my weight against the door, full strength. It didn't so much as rattle.

  Panting, my legs trembling with fatigue, I sat in front of the door and contemplated the possibilities. I could feel the sword's presence very clearly, just above my head. It was up here for sure. But Tweed couldn't possibly climb all those stairs every time he wanted to come up; that would be pretty silly for a guy who transported himself instantly through shadows. Ergo, the stairs were for guests, maybe just for show. So the door most likely was, too. Maybe it didn't open at all. Maybe it led into a pit full of Tigers—the natural or the non-natural kind. Maybe it would explode.

  I looked above me at the underside of the central platform, balanced on the very tip of the spire. It was even bigger than I'd guessed from below, hundreds of feet across and heavily buttressed underneath. If I were, well, not me, maybe I could use a grappling hook to snag the edge and climb up. Lily-Bell could probably have done it. Me? Not so much, even if I had a grappling hook. The sword might as well be on the moon.

  The view was stunning from up here. The entire city was spread below me. This close to the top of Tweed's lair, I could see that the dome was made of a black iron lattice with inset glass panels. The whole thing must be stunningly heavy; I couldn't even imagine how it supported itself until I noticed that the edges of the panels seemed to blur slightly. What I'd taken for iron was actually shadow, either reinforcing an underlying frame or simply supporting the whole thing on its own. That explained why there were no shadows from the dome's frame on the black-and-white checkerboard floor far below me; shadows don't cast shadows of their own. A whole dome, built of shadow and light. The colors of the aurora sky splintered and refracted through the glass—if it even was glass, and not crystalized light to go along with the frozen shadows—and created a shifting array of prism colors.

  I contemplated staying here until Tweed got back, but I had to go to the bathroom.

  "You and your bright ideas, Kay," I muttered to myself, getting wearily to my feet.

  Somehow I managed the climb down. Every time I looked at the sheer drop under my feet, I
'd go woozy and had to cling to the railing for a while. But I took it one step at a time, and somehow each of those steps translated eventually into an entire, really long staircase. My legs felt like they'd been beaten with baseball bats. And now I really had to go.

  Behind the stairs, Tweed had said, and sure enough, there was another door with a fancy handle set into the base of the pillar, this one standing halfway open. The bathroom inside was huge, with a sunken tub, a bidet, and a vast tiled countertop for doing, I guess, whatever people who wear makeup do in bathrooms.

  The laws of narrative causality said that I ought to come out to find Tweed waiting for me. Instead, I found that the tea had cooled and the butter had gone soft. I ate a scone and drank some lukewarm tea. Then I hiked across the checkerboard floor to look at the dome up close.

  From a distance, it seemed to meet the floor—and so it did. My guess about its construction had been absolutely correct. The glass panels, each as big as a floor-to-ceiling office window, were solid; I tapped one with my finger, and it felt like real glass. It smudged like glass. But between them was a lattice of black nothingness. When I poked a finger into it, I felt bone-chilling cold and pulled it hastily out. There was frost on my fingernail.

  The shadow matrix had an uncomfortable way of vibrating on the eyeballs when you weren't looking at it directly. This was no mere shadow. It was the absolute darkness that Irmingard and Millie had called the between space.

  And I was standing in a dome made from it.

  In theory, I might be able to push through it. The individual bars of the lattice were about two feet wide—thread-thin from afar, but large enough to accommodate me easily if I turned sideways. But even assuming a human being could survive a brief trip in between-space—then what? I was a hundred stories in the air. I couldn't fly. I had nothing to climb with, even if I was in shape to rappel down the Empire State Building.