Echo City Page 25

  Which was when it really hit me that I was about to step off the top of the Empire State Building attached to a pair of fiberglass wings. "Oh, no," I said. "Oh, hell no."

  "You're a hundred floors up, and the entire building is in the hands of Tweed's people. Sorry, honey. Let's move."

  The bars of the cage surrounding the captive Tiger disintegrated suddenly, and it leaped over the wreckage. Not a prisoner after all: a guard. It bounded toward us, joined by two more; I had no idea where they'd come from. It was like they'd melted out of the floor. Perhaps they had.

  I knotted my hands into Lily's harness, chest to chest, while she buckled the strap around my waist. Lily turned us around and we made an awkward, shuffling dash for the hole in the dome.

  This didn't tweak my fear of heights quite as much as I was expecting because my reptile hindbrain just couldn't grok what was happening. Sort of like airplanes don't bother me that way. My acrophobia took one look at the cityscape impossibly far below us, decided the whole thing had to be happening in a movie, and stopped arguing.

  It also helped that, at the exact moment when Lily stepped off the edge and the wind caught us, I was looking back at the Tigers. I felt the stomach-jolting plunge into nothingness, but I was still looking over Lily's shoulder, expecting them to slow down. They didn't. We found an updraft and looped around the edge of the huge platform, while the Tigers galloped to the edge and leaped through the gap, one after the other. As they jumped, wings sprouted from their powerful shoulders, unfurling and spreading in seconds.

  "You have got to be kidding me!"

  "What?" Lily said, and then as our next turn brought us to a point where she could see the Tigers closing rapidly, looking for all the world like the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz: "Hell!"

  She trimmed the glider and we dropped. My stomach jumped into my throat and stayed there.

  "Maybe I should've listened to you and gone back for the sword!" Lily shouted over the wind. "There's a gun on my belt—I can't reach it while I'm flying."

  I pried one hand free of her harness and scrabbled at her belt. My hands were numb; it was cold up here. I got the gun loose, a huge revolver. I wasn't great with guns to begin with—the only gun I'd ever fired in my life was Fresca's shotgun—and the way the glider was shuddering all over the place, the muzzle jerked wildly around.

  "I'm afraid I'll hit you!"

  "Well, don't!"

  "I'll try," I said between my teeth. I didn't dare let go of her harness, so I tried bracing the gun against Lily's shoulder and hooking one arm through a cross-strap.

  The Tigers swooped after us. They were more maneuverable, but Lily was plummeting rapidly and there wasn't much they could do except chase us. My ears popped, then popped again. I hoped she knew what she was doing. The street seemed to be rushing up at us with terrifying speed; buildings rocketed past on either side.

  Oh—there was my fear of heights! I knew it had to be around here somewhere.

  I'd taken my eyes off the Tigers, so it came as a total shock when one of them dropped into our flight path, wings spread wide and claws extended. Its face, twisted in a snarl, was a distorted mishmash of animal and human, a werewolf trapped in mid-transformation.

  Lily wrenched the glider to the side and we tilted crazily, nearly flipping over. The Tiger's wing brushed past my face—black and orange feathers, barred like a hawk's. "Damn it!" Lily gasped and we wobbled the other way, coming within a hairsbreadth of the glossy windows of a hotel tower. She straightened us out somehow. The street sped past below, empty of cars in a way Manhattan never, ever was.

  With my body pressed against Lily's, I could feel her heart pounding and the strain of the muscles in her arms and shoulders as she steered the glider.

  "Lay down cover fire, Kay," she gasped. "See if you can get them to back off."

  I could only see one of the Tigers at the moment—where was the other? No time to worry about it. I held the gun over Lily's shoulder and fired. Missed completely, of course. Lily gasped and the glider jerked. "Sorry!" I said, realizing belatedly that I'd probably half-deafened her.

  There was a ripping sound above us, and the glider's frame shuddered as we suddenly dropped. I looked up and glimpsed sky and striped fur. Not thinking, just reacting, I squeezed the trigger, firing straight up. There was a shriek from above. The recoil almost knocked the gun out of my hands.

  We continued to drop, the glider's fabric fluttering in the wind. Even damaged, it was still slowing us somewhat, enough that we weren't in free-fall, but Lily's body was as tense as stretched wire. She fought the glider's erratic movements, struggling to keep us under control and bring us in to land rather than flipping into a building.

  "Brace yourself," she gasped out, and then we hit the street with the tip of one wing, scraping the pavement and flipping us up and over. I dropped the gun and lost track of everything in a flurry of elbows and knees and broken glider struts and pain.

  As soon as we stopped moving, while I was still lying there trying to figure out if my arms were still attached, Lily began thrashing. "Get unbuckled. Got to get free—where's my gun?"

  "I lost it. I'm sorry." We were both tangled in the ruins of the glider, not to mention tangled up with each other. Lily undid my waist strap and then got her own torso free, while I tried to clear the clinging fabric off my face.

  Small light footsteps skittered up to us. I finally unwrapped my head and was horrified to see Fresca, shotgun slung over her shoulder, leaning down to give me a hand.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "We're rescuing you!" Fresca said. "Are you okay?"

  "I hope there's a very large army with you two." I let Fresca help me get untangled and stand up. I was bruised from top to bottom and having trouble catching my breath, but nothing seemed to be broken.

  "Nope," Lily said brightly. "Just us. The nearest door is pretty far from here; let's move."

  We abandoned the wreckage of the glider—Lily with a single regretful backward glance—and ran into the canyons of the city. Muirin had been pushing me to do more jogging. If I got out of this, I was absolutely taking her up on it. I would run two miles before breakfast. Three. Possibly four ... I staggered, pressing my hand to a stitch in my side. Fresca was having even more trouble, between her short legs and generally being out of shape.

  Tigers poured around the corner behind us, some on the ground—blurring into a many-legged mass of striped fur—and some leaping from window-ledge to ornamental outcropping on the buildings. It was a Tiger army.

  "Holy shit!" Fresca yelped. It came out as a breathless wheeze. "Is that what they look like?"

  "You can see them now?" I caught her arm and pulled her along.

  "Sort of! It kind of—goes in and out—like I can see them when I don't look directly at—Kay, please, I can't." She was all but falling now.

  "You're coming if I have to carry you," I gasped, but I was running out of breath and strength myself.

  "I think it's time to call for help." Lily hooked a finger in the chain around her neck and pulled up the snowflake pendant. She cupped it in her hand as we ran and pursed her lips to blow on it. I had thought it was metal, but the edges warped and deformed, and it collapsed to water in her palm.

  "What's that?" I panted.

  "A promise of a reciprocal favor, from someone I once did a service for." We pounded around the corner. Lily, I could tell, was holding herself in check for our benefit. She could probably have outdistanced us easily. "One does not call upon him lightly. There will be a cost. I hope it's worth it."

  "And I hope this door you're talking about is close," I gasped. I was half carrying Fresca now, supporting her with a hand under her elbow. Lily dropped back to take the shotgun from her, slipping the strap off Fresca's arm without breaking stride.

  A small pack of Tigers leaped down from the buildings above into our path. One of them was human-shaped, but she landed on all fours and then straightened up, blonde curls bouncing. "Kay," Millie s
aid. "This isn't necessary."

  We were surrounded, with more of them pouring in all the time, ahead and behind.

  "I really," Fresca gasped, fighting for air with her hands on her knees, "... really think we shoulda had a better escape plan than 'run'."

  Lily struck a flare and handed it to me. I held it at arm's length, waving it in the Tigers' faces. It was, I would later learn, a marine signal flare, not the smaller road-flare kind; it burned bright and hot and long, spitting out sparks that stung my hand.

  Lily struck another and we stood back to back, with Fresca sandwiched between us, as prowling orange bodies circled us on all sides.

  I felt a cool tug in the pit of my stomach. I knew that feeling; it was how I knew when the sword was drawing on my life force to do its magic. Except this time, it was the Tigers, drawing the energy out of us. My knees wobbled.

  "Surrender and you won't be hurt," Millie said. She was unarmed, at least to outward appearances. She held her hands up and out in a conciliatory gesture.

  "Don't you dare talk to me!" I thrust the flare into her face; she flinched back.

  The Tigers began to part like the Red Sea. Tweed strolled down the resulting aisle, unhurried, tapping his gold-headed cane on the pavement.

  "Miss Darrow, what an unpleasant and entirely unnecessary mess. I really hoped you wouldn't try something like this."

  Lily dropped the flare, whipped up the shotgun, and fired into his face, all three shots as fast as she could eject the shells.

  Tweed didn't move, didn't flinch, but a wave of shadow masked him instantly and then receded like a tide. Buckshot clattered to the pavement around his feet.

  "Drink her," he said.

  Lily made a grab for the flare. She wasn't fast enough. She went down beneath a mass of furry bodies, swinging the shotgun like a club and screaming in rage.

  I screamed too, struggling to get to her. Clawed hands closed on my arms, bitterly cold, pulling me back. I lost my grip on my flare; it fell to the ground, hissing and spitting sparks, utterly useless.

  "Enough," Tweed said calmly.

  The melee froze in tableau, and he strode through the Tigers to a kneeling, shaking Lily. I could see the sidewalk through her; they had drained her that much. She'd lost the gun and her headscarf, but with the Tigers pulling back, she managed to get to her feet. She dodged Tweed's first attempt to grab her, but he got her on the second try, pinning her hands.

  "You've always been a thorn in my side, dear. I'd love to have you as one of my own."

  Lily spat in his face. "Never. Go to hell."

  In a voice still calm and pleasant, he said, "I'm sorry to hear that."

  It was instantaneous. One minute she was standing there, translucent but still defiant, unbowed. And then she wisped away—unfurling, unwinding—and was gone into his hands.

  I was vaguely aware that I was screaming, struggling, throwing myself against the Tigers. The next thing I knew, I was down on my face, the pavement gritty under my cheek. Over the heartbeat hammering in my ears, I could barely hear Fresca screaming my name. The Tigers' claws were all over me, their weight bearing me down, their cold touch drawing the life out of me.

  "I see foolish stubbornness is a family trait," Tweed said, somewhere above me.

  I managed to scrape together the energy to raise my head. He loomed against the sunset sky; he seemed to fill the world. Behind his shoulder, I could see Millie, her face pained.

  "You killed her." I was too furious to cry. I had thought I hated people before, but I knew now that it had been nothing but petty schoolyard anger. This was hate. I wanted to see him torn apart. I would have done it myself if I could have reached him.

  Tweed bent over from the waist to get a better look at me, leaning on his cane. I wanted to rip his eyes out, but I couldn't even move. My arms were two lead weights. I could no longer feel my body well enough to tell if the Tigers were still holding me down or if they'd drawn so much energy from me that my body had become a fleshbound prison.

  "You will help me, Miss Darrow," he said quietly. "Your friend will ensure that you do."

  Fresca made a strangled sound. I couldn't see her through the press of Tigers. Couldn't see what they were doing to her.

  "Let her go." The words were ripped from my throat. "Let her go—please."

  "And give up a perfectly useful bargaining chip? I don't think so." He reached down to touch my cheek. I made an earnest attempt to bite him. When his hand drew back, I no longer had the strength to keep my head up, and the world tilted again.

  Fresca. I'm so sorry ...

  Hoofbeats.

  The sound penetrated my haze. It was the only real thing in the world. Although I'd lost most of the feeling in my body, I was aware the Tigers were no longer upon me, and I opened my eyes to squint at the blurry world. I turned my head, tipped it to the side.

  Something like this had happened to me once before.

  I thought I might be dead.

  It was a figure out of nightmare that came upon us, a figure out of legend. The huge black horse's eyes gleamed like flame, and its black-cloaked rider had a stag's head, antlers raking the sky. Two white hounds with red ears flanked the horse. One was Creiddylad with her blood-red collar; the other wore a collar of ice-pale blue.

  The Tigers withdrew from Fresca and me, snarling and shrinking back, when the horse clattered to a stop in front of us.

  "You," Tweed said. He sounded surprised. "And in regalia, no less. This is not your affair." But he sounded, for an instant, uncertain.

  "You're right," said Gwyn's voice from behind the stag's face, which I now realized was an antlered mask. His tone was cold and flat, imbued with a power and authority that I hadn't heard in the mild voice of the bookshop owner. "Your petty conflicts are nothing to me, nor how you dispense justice in your demesne. I care not if you are a tyrant or a gentle master. I was called upon by one to whom I owed a favor, and I am here to satisfy that obligation. I am too late for she who called me, so I will take these mortal children that were in her care, and be gone, and trouble you no more."

  Tweed tucked his thumbs into his suspenders. He still looked confident—a whole lot more confident than I would be when confronted by a Celtic god of death. "You are bound by your own laws not to interfere with me."

  "I am bound to treat with you as monarch of a nation equal to my own," Gwyn returned. His eyes glittered behind the mask. "If you wish to break the ancient laws and make yourself my enemy, I invite you to do so. Give me a reason, O small upstart god."

  It was Tweed who broke first, Tweed who stepped back. "Very well. They are yours, and I wish you joy of them."

  Fresca's small hands dipped under my arms. She was eight inches shorter than me, but somehow she got me upright and helped lift me to Gwyn. A wrenching tug and I sprawled facedown over his horse's neck. "Fresca," I managed to gasp weakly.

  "I'm here," Fresca said, and I lifted my head enough to glimpse her straddling the horse behind Gwyn, her arms wrapped around his waist.

  "Hold tight," Gwyn said. "This will be a journey of more than physical distance."

  The horse's muscles bunched under me, and I wanted to stay awake, but I sank down, down, and ... gone.

  Chapter 20

  ... Soft.

  Warm, contented, and drowsy, it took me a little while to determine I wasn't dreaming, especially since it felt like I was buried in fur. I opened my eyes long enough to decide that it was actually fur, but no longer attached to its owner—just fur, animal skins, like heavy comforters pressing me into the bed.

  I closed my eyes and drifted back into my drowsy state, half-awake, half-dreaming. Apparently waking up in strange beds was the new normal ...

  Millie. The last time I woke up in a strange bed, she'd been lying beside me. This time—

  My eyes snapped open again.

  Low, blackened ceiling timbers were the first thing I saw. I pushed myself up on my elbows, waited out a head rush, and got a look at the rest of the roo
m. Made of roughly mortared stone and not much bigger than a closet, it looked like something out of a medieval reenactment. There was a single narrow window with no glass in it, admitting a fresh breeze into the cramped space. Actually—forget fresh, try Arctic. The room was cold, and someone had stripped me down to my T-shirt and underwear. Under the furs on the bed, I was really too warm, actually a bit sweaty, but any part of me that peeped out got a rash of instant goosebumps.

  My clothes were folded neatly on top of a small wooden chest, the room's only furnishing aside from the bed. I snaked out an arm and pulled my jeans and shirt underneath the furs with me, getting dressed while exposing as little skin as possible to the chilly air. My whole body ached, and I was absolutely starving, the kind of deep aching hunger that I associated with having used the sword too much and needing to replenish myself. That was probably something to do with the Tigers having drained me.

  Was Fresca here? And where exactly was here?

  I slithered out of bed with a few muttered curses, pushed my feet into my shoes, and limped to the window. Wherever I was, it appeared to be on a hill in the middle of farm country. A rugged bluff fell away beneath the window to the twisting silver ribbon of a narrow river. On the far side, the landscape was a rolling patchwork of forests, fields and farms. Farm animals of the four-legged variety dotted the green hills, and wisps of smoke rose from little cottages. I couldn't see a single tractor, red-painted barn, farm truck, paved road, or other sign of modernity anywhere. It was like I'd gone straight back to medieval times.

  Maybe I had.

  The door was unlocked and opened onto a hallway with a packed dirt floor and low ceiling. I could smell baking bread, and followed the elusive scent through a few turns before I found a flight of broad, shallow stone-flagged steps. Warmth and cooking smells led me downstairs and into a large room lit with electric lights—the first glimpse so far that I was somewhere more recent than 500 A.D.

  The big room was an interesting mix of ancient and modern. A huge fireplace dominated the far end, pumping out heat that felt blissful after the frigid corridors. There was a gleaming stainless-steel refrigerator, sized for a small restaurant, next to a long, low stone countertop pitted from years of use. Flagstones paved the floor, worn and cracked, with dirt between.