Echo City Page 24

  I seated myself crosslegged on the floor, meditated for a moment, and switched into my second sight. It came easily; perhaps I was getting better at it.

  And the sight that greeted me through the dome was spectacular. A web of blue light crisscrossed the entire city, and all the ends of all the threads connected to the platform upon which I sat. Like a spider at the center of his web, St. Claire had said, and she had been speaking the literal truth.

  I wondered if one of those blue threads ran to the tunnel that ended at the ruin in the woods.

  But right now, none of it helped me.

  I banished my second sight with growing ease of practice, and began to explore the dome in search of anything that could be used to free myself or send a message. There was no coherent interior-decorating theme other than "rich douche." I assumed Tweed had chosen to fill his space with whatever caught his fancy, anything that he found interesting or pretty or expensive enough to own. He seemed especially fond of neoclassical sculpture. I wandered past a statue of a nymph pursued by a satyr (the nymph looking back in obvious terror; how tasteful), an assortment of Romans in togas, a sunken reflecting pool framed by Ionic columns, and the orrery I'd noticed earlier, a huge brass model of the solar system, rotating slowly on whisper-silent clockworks.

  Why couldn't he have been a HAM radio geek instead? Or an obsessive collector of computers and other communication devices? I wondered if I could get someone's attention by pushing the satyr over the edge, assuming I could get him through the dome somehow. Could I find something to pick the lock? Of course, that would be easier if I knew how to pick locks. I'd meant to have Muirin teach me ...

  "Sorry to keep you waiting," Tweed said behind me, and I almost knocked Saturn out of its orbit. Tweed was next to the tiger cage, studying its inhabitant.

  And he wasn't alone.

  Leather bomber jacket. Strawberry blonde curls. My first thought was Oh no, he caught her too! But that didn't explain her expression when she looked at me: guilt and sadness, quickly veiled.

  "Oh, Millie," I said helplessly. "Oh, Millie, no."

  Millie tried to give me a friendly smile but it came out more of a sick grimace instead. "Hi, Kay."

  "Excellent, you already know each other." Tweed ushered us both towards the table. When he picked up the teapot, fresh steam began to curl from the spigot. He poured for both of us. I accepted the cup numbly, my fingers trembling.

  Millie took hers without looking at it and immediately put it back down. "Kay, I didn't—I don't—" She took a breath and started over. "Please don't look at me like that."

  "How am I supposed to look at you? Why, Millie?"

  Millie stiffened her back. "I don't think I need to explain myself to you."

  "No, of course not," I said. "It's not like we're friends or anything."

  Tweed tapped the side of the teapot to get our attention, a little tinkling-bell sound. "Not that the verbal sparring isn't entertaining, ladies, but we're here for a business matter. Miss Darrow—" He dipped a small bow in my direction. "If you'd be so good, we could use your expertise in a matter of mutual interest."

  "What matter would that be?" I asked warily.

  "Why, the reason I brought you here, my dear. Amelia is to be the new wielder of the sword, and you will be her teacher."

  Chapter 19

  I stared at both of them. "Say what now?"

  Millie fidgeted and glanced at Tweed, deferring to him for an explanation.

  "Well, it can't be you, Miss Darrow," Tweed said patiently, as if explaining to a child. "You aren't a shadow construct, so you can't become one of my Tigers. Amelia is bright and sensible, and should make an excellent pupil."

  The tea I'd just swallowed rose again in my throat. "Millie is a Tiger?"

  Millie bit her lip.

  "You're not Amelia Earhart at all." My voice was weak and thready in my own ears. "You're just her shadow."

  "I am Amelia Earhart," Millie said sharply. "There's no difference."

  I had to set down the teacup; my hands were shaking too violently to hold it. "No, of course not. I'm sure the real Amelia Earhart would approve wholeheartedly of what you've done."

  "Ladies," Tweed said, a hint of disapproval in his plummy tones. "None of this, now. As I'm tightly scheduled of the moment, Amelia, shall we move this show along?"

  Without asking permission, he gripped her elbow and reached a hand toward me, fingertips brushing my sleeve. A quick rush of that disorienting, icy blackness washed away the checkerboard platform and left us standing on a plush gold carpet.

  The entire upper platform was one great bedroom. An endless expanse of deep gold carpet, punctuated with conversation groupings of richly upholstered sofas, the biggest four-poster bed I'd ever seen, a fully stocked bar with a huge mahogany backboard carved into intricate reliefs of nymphs and cherubs ...

  It was the only bedroom I'd ever seen with a swimming pool in the middle of it.

  There was no ceiling, just a low golden railing around the outer perimeter. Above us, seemingly close enough to touch, the rainbow sky wheeled in its slow precession on the other side of the dome. And in the middle of that, I saw the sword.

  I'd expected it to be hidden and hard to find. It wasn't. It hung some thirty feet above the floor, directly below the apex of the dome—and right above the swimming pool, reflected in the clear blue-green water. A black rope of shadow snaked around it, wound in an intricate knot that enclosed the floating sword without touching it.

  I took an involuntary step forward, then ran. No one stopped me. I stumbled to a halt at the edge of the pool and looked up at it. The shadowy cage was just translucent enough that I could see the sword's outline, the dull gleam of its blade revealed in little flashes as the whole thing rotated slowly in the air. It had no visible means of support. And without a very tall stepladder, I couldn't dream of reaching it.

  Come to me, I thought at it. I'd never tried to summon the sword before, and I had no idea if it worked that way, but what could it hurt to try? I imagined myself as a powerful magnet, the sword a tiny iron shaving. I drew it to me with everything I had, concentrating so hard that my vision darkened and a headache throbbed at my temples.

  Nothing.

  "It's quite a thing, isn't it?" Tweed ambled toward me, one hand tucked into his waistcoat. Millie followed a step behind. "I understand that, at the moment, you're the only person who can touch it without pain."

  Oh really? From the wary look on Millie's face as she gazed up at the sword, I guessed her experience had been unpleasant.

  Good, I thought bitterly. I hoped it had hurt.

  Millie glanced at Tweed for permission to speak. At his nod, she said, "You're the closest we have to an expert on the sword, Kay. We'd like to know how to encourage it to imprint on someone else."

  The irony was not lost on me. There was nothing I wanted more than to get the sword untangled from me and into the hands of someone more suited to it. But—not these people. A double agent and a petty tyrant? I didn't think so.

  Anyway, I couldn't help them even if I wanted to.

  "I don't know," I said, and to their skeptical expressions, "I really don't. You're going to have to ask Muirin. Do you know where she is?" An even worse thought occurred to me. "Did you kill her?"

  "What? No!" Millie's shock seemed to be genuine. "I don't know where she is. None of us do. I hoped you did."

  I gave Tweed a sharp look. If that was a poker face, he had a good one; he looked genial and intrigued, as usual. "Well, I don't. So I guess we're on our own. Give me the sword and let me experiment a bit."

  Tweed's mouth twitched. "That seems unwise."

  "What can I possibly do? I'm at the top of your Fortress of Solitude."

  "Putting together that cage was quite a task. I don't see any point in undoing it just yet, while your cooperation remains uncertain."

  "Great," I said. "So you brought me here to theorize. Look, I don't know, okay? I don't know how any of this works. All I kn
ow is that I picked up the sword and it just started working for me, and now it's kinda bonded to me. I have no idea why."

  "Before it was yours, it resided with the O'Connor family, I understand?" Tweed said.

  Now Millie was the one with the poker face, and it grew even blander when I glared at her. There was only one place Tweed could have gotten that information. "Yes, which is why I don't have a clue how this works. I've only had the sword for a couple of months, and Muirin has mostly been teaching me to use it, not walking me through Magic Sword 101."

  And the one thing I did know for sure about how the sword passed from owner to owner was the one thing I could never tell them. The sword had bonded to me after Bill's death. If I told them the sword would choose a new owner as soon as I died, I figured my lifespan would be measured in minutes.

  "Sir, may I speak to her alone for a minute?" Millie asked.

  "Oh, of course." Tweed waved a hand and moseyed towards the bar. "Would either of you care for a drink?"

  "Please," Millie said.

  We both watched Tweed until he was out of apparent earshot, though I'd bet my bottom dollar he was still listening to us.

  "I know you're angry," Millie said, low and fast. "And I understand why—"

  "Yeah? Did you really have to break my car window, Millie? You could probably have popped the lock in thirty seconds."

  "I needed it to look like a break-in. I'll pay for it to be replaced. Kay ... this isn't personal, okay? It's business. You aren't going to be hurt."

  "No, I'm sure you guys are just going to let me go back to the Gatekeepers and tell them how you're a Tiger and a traitor and all. I'm not stupid."

  Millie smiled tightly. "I think that if you plan to take this to the Gatekeepers, you're in for a surprise. They understand this kind of thing. I'm not disloyal to them. I never have been. I simply have my own set of loyalties. That's true of most of the others, too."

  "What about Irmingard?" This time, I saw her react. "What do you think she's going to say? I notice she's not here now. How much does she know about these other loyalties of yours?"

  "You're grasping at straws. You want to find reasons to hate and wound me, but you have to know that your best chance of getting out of here lies with me."

  I laughed, sharp and startled. "What happened to 'we're not going to hurt you, Kay'? You should probably stop talking. You're just digging your hole deeper."

  Millie heaved a sigh and turned away from me, looking up at the sword rotating under the dome. "If trust is out of the question, then let's simply consider a truce as long as our goals coincide, all right? You want to get out of here alive and well. I want that for you, as well."

  "What about the sword? Why on earth do you want it?"

  "I don't," Millie said. "Mr. Tweed does. And since I was the one to bring it to him, and I'm also one of his most stable Tigers, the honor of wielding it has gone to me."

  "Why not Tweed hims—oh. Nevermind." I didn't even need an answer to that question. If the sword was going to turn its new master into a pillar of ash, Tweed would certainly test it on someone else first. "One of the most stable Tigers, huh? What does that mean?"

  Millie pursed her lips, then said, "You've probably noticed the Tigers you've met so far aren't exactly ... people, anymore. So I'm very careful. I don't know how much has been explained to you of how we operate, but the energy we live on is addictive. We can't use what we drink in from the world around us. Only Tweed can feed us, and the more we take, the more of ourselves we lose." For an instant I glimpsed the need in her eyes, an animal hunger, twisting her face and quickly masked again. "Those of us who have the willpower to keep ourselves in a state of starvation, taking just enough to keep us from fading, can hold onto our human selves longer than the others."

  Wonderful. Not just a Tiger, but a starving Tiger. And how much starvation did it take before a Tiger snapped and started sucking in life energy from everyone around it—like a person dying of thirst, drinking sea water, knowing it wouldn't help but too far gone to care?

  "If you're trying to reassure me," I said, "you're doing a lousy job."

  "I'm not going to hurt you, Kay."

  "Color me skeptical."

  Millie heaved a sigh and stepped back. She gestured to the sword above us. "Can we at least agree that we have a mutual goal? I want the sword. You want to leave. All you have to do is transfer it from yourself to me."

  "And you think I can just do it like that? It's not as easy as inserting sword A into wielder B."

  Millie turned an involuntary laugh into a cough.

  "Listen," I said. "I have no idea how the sword works. I really don't. All I know is that it attached itself to me and now it thinks it's mine—if it thinks at all; I haven't figured that out yet, either. I'd give it to you if I knew how." Which wasn't exactly true, but wasn't completely untrue, either. "But I don't."

  "So we're at an impasse," Tweed said, appearing out of nowhere—perhaps literally. He handed Millie a glass with a couple fingers of amber-colored liquid in the bottom.

  "So it would appear," Millie agreed, looking at me ruefully as she swished the booze around in her glass. She didn't drink it.

  Shadow washed around us and receded, taking us back to the main level. I felt a small inward twinge at the increased distance from the sword.

  "Miss Darrow, have you used the bathroom recently?" Tweed asked me.

  I boggled at him. "That's a little personal, don't you think? Uh, yes, I did. Was I not supposed to?"

  "I don't wish you to be uncomfortable, that's all."

  Tweed lifted a hand, and cage bars followed it. They grew out of the floor, surrounding me before I could move, finally sprouting a ceiling over my head. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to react. Then he and Millie dissolved into the floor, Millie looking back at me with a worried frown.

  "Gee, thanks for asking!" I yelled after him.

  The cage was about ten feet by five. Attempting to pace made me dizzy, so I leaned against the bars. I had a surge of sympathy for the tiger in its cage, although it was so far away that I couldn't see what it was doing across the vast expanse of black-and-white floor between us. Watching me? Lying down? It was nothing but a small dark smudge against the checkerboard tiles.

  "There is no way something this size can be stable on top of the Empire State Building," I muttered to myself.

  With nothing else to do, I took inventory of my pockets. I'd ditched my slicker at Lily-Bell's place, and Fresca had the backpack. A currently useless cell phone, my wallet, a handful of cough drops, a couple of colored pencil stubs and my pocket-sized 3x5 sketchpad were the majority of my assets. If I had to draw my way out of trouble, I'd be all set.

  I still had the drawings of Jill Frost and Creiddylad, and Gwyn's letter for Muirin, folded neatly in their plastic-wrapped envelope. Little more than a reminder of bygone days at this point. Why couldn't any of the magical intruders in my life show up when they'd actually be useful?

  And I had Lily's iron key—but it was still just as useless as it had been upstairs, for the cage had no lock. I tried using the tip of the key to scratch a keyhole on the bars, then a key outline like the one upstate, then an eye. None of it made a difference.

  As I looked around, yet again, for anything that might help me, a flicker of movement caught my eye. There was a dark speck in the shifting yet ever-constant heavens.

  I squinted at it. At first I thought it was just a trick of the changing light, but no—there was really something out there, swooping and dipping on air currents. It was too big to be a pigeon or seagull. An eagle? Dinosaur? Airplane?

  When it swooped past the dome, I got a good enough look at it to recognize ... a hang glider. Its wings were painted in brilliant swirls of gold and red. I couldn't see enough of the pilot to have the slightest clue who it was, though I had a couple of guesses.

  It swooped back for another pass, and the pilot threw something that exploded in an eyeball-searing flare of light and a b
urst of noise and shattering glass. I threw my arms over my head instinctively, though I was too far away to be hit by shrapnel. When I cautiously uncovered my head and blinked the blotches out of my watering eyes, there was a ragged gap in the dome near floor level. The hang glider made a big circle in the air and, with impressive precision flying, glided through the gap and made a pinpoint landing on the checkerboard floor. The pilot stumbled to a stop and began freeing herself from the harness.

  It was Lily-Bell. She wore her black ninja sweater and a bright yellow-and-pink scarf that trailed fluttering streamers down her back. Grinning, she shed the harness and ran elf-light to my cage.

  "Kay! Are you all right?"

  "You are absolutely certifiable, Great-Grandma," I said, reaching through the bars to grasp her hands. "But in a good way."

  "Hang tight, Kay." She looked around and dashed over to the sunken garden, and was back in a minute lugging a four-foot statue of a cherub. I backed away from the bars when I realized what she had in mind. Marble bars met plaster statue; plaster disintegrated, but not before the slender bars snapped under the statue's onslaught. I covered my face from the flying shower of debris, then accepted Lily's help crawling through the gap.

  "I thought they'd never leave," she said in disgust.

  "You've been flying around all this time?"

  "No. Watching with binoculars. Every Tiger in the area will be on their way here. Let's go go go."

  "The sword," I panted as we ran back to her hang glider. "It's up there. I don't know how I can get it out—"

  "Forget the sword. The important thing is getting you."

  "How do you know how to fly this thing?" I asked as she tipped up the hang glider and began quickly and efficiently buckling herself into the harness.

  She flashed me a grin. "Longtime hobby of mine."

  "Where do you go hang gliding in a big city?"

  "You'd be surprised. There are some waterfront neighborhoods with no people that are perfect for it." She held out a hand. "C'mere. This one isn't designed for two—those do exist, but I didn't have time, so I jerry-rigged something. There's a strap to go around your waist, and otherwise you'll hold onto me."