Brighid's Flame (7 page)

Of course, there was still a good chance he could seduce Tara back to his side if she still cared for him. He had to believe she could still be brought back into the fold.

Getting Tara back alone made it worth the risk.

Travelling on foot to Bowling Green without their gear hadn't been easy, or comfortable. Tara and Stephen had been forced to trade their flashlights for outerwear and enough food to get them as far as the Refugee Train stop, having left the bulk of their equipment behind in their escape. Stephen had turned his ankle jumping from the subway roof, slowing them down more than anticipated.

He'd told her to go on without him. She told him if he made the suggestion one more time, she'd duct tape his mouth shut.

The searing bright fire that had so surprisingly sprung up between them hadn't dampened with their predicament, but at this point she could only see so far ahead. She wasn't so naïve as to think she wouldn't need him every step of the way—a difficult lesson hard-earned.

So they huddled together in a corner of the Ellis Island Ferry, even more slow-moving than the train, with the wind whistling harshly in their numb ears and splashing gray-green water on them over the rail. Stephen merely held Tara in his arms, arms and legs knotted with her head wearily on his chest, his head resting atop hers. And thus they made themselves a small cocoon of warmth and privacy.

Despite the cold and lack of speed, this cozy state of affairs proved short-lived. They joined the throng eager to leave the ferry for the next part of their journey, hands firmly entwined as they endeavored to blend in. The shuffle from ferry to dock to processing center felt to Tara like the interminable shuffle of the damned toward the gates of Hell. She hadn't quite reached the point of abandoning all hope, but she imagined herself heading there at something less than speed. She clutched Stephen's hand all the tighter and kept her head down.

The processing center was packed with people all waiting their turns at the desks and tables lining the walls of the main hall like sentinels. There
were
sentinels, guards at regular intervals like sharp, jet crystals on a beaded necklace. People seeking to exit the city were camped out with the meager belongings on benches and the floor, wherever space could be had. Occasionally, an administrator type would come along, identify their quarry from the small tablet in their hand, and take them away to some other part of the building. These, Tara gathered, were the few fortunate ones who'd reserved their places ahead of time, either through years of waiting and paperwork or the strategic placement of bribes.

Tara and Stephen made it through the first checkpoint, their thumbprints bringing up false identities as a young couple seeking a fresh start in a colony in upstate New York—she as a militia transfer and he a skilled engineer. In turn they were given numbers, a small packet of military vouchers, and instructions to find a place to wait, as someone would be with them shortly.

They traded a small, ironic smile at the sight of the teeming crowds in the main hall. Shortly, perhaps compared to the end of the
next
millennium. Tara gave an accepting shrug and led the way into the masses. Ellis Island's conversion to a military border operation did more to hinder the halfhearted efforts of a festival atmosphere than help it. The Hall lacked the determined, if slightly manic, vibe of the Wreckage in Central Park whenever the Foundation trucks made an appearance.

Tara and Stephen exchanged a few of their vouchers for coffee and sandwiches at a small kiosk awash in bodies, a small island due to fall beneath the sea at any moment. Then they waded their way through the hall until they found a dank, dusty little square of floor to settle on, their backs to a pillar.

“It'd be nice, wouldn't it? If it were true?”

It was the first time they'd spoken to one another since the train. “If what were true?” Tara asked, handing him two creamers for his coffee.

“Gwen's background story—a young couple headed north to try their luck at one of the colonies.”

Tara tried to imagine it. “I guess it's not too far out of the realm of possibility—you are a trained engineer, after all. And my training could only be described as ‘militia'.”

Stephen smiled down at her. “Maybe we could still do it, after all this—whatever this is—is over.”

Tara very carefully removed the plastic lid from her Styrofoam cup. “Leave the city?”

“Leave Vincent, you mean.” Stephen tried not to sound disappointed. “You don't think that part of our lives is over?”

“I honestly haven't thought that far ahead.” It was true. The idea of anything happening after tomorrow night was beyond her present mental capacity. Leave it to Stephen to consider it simply another beginning. It made her proud, and a little sad, that he had so much faith in her.

“It's okay to be angry with them. Gwen and Vincent, I mean.” He gave his coffee an experimental sip, grimaced, and added the last creamer. “They should have told you.”

She sipped her own coffee by way of stalling. “I'm sure they had their reasons.”

“I'm sure they did. But it doesn't change the fact they should have told you.”

A mere six or seven hours later—Tara lost track, and she wasn't sure the one available public clock was correct—one of the uniformed administrators found them, escorted by two armed guards. “Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Marshall?”

Tara startled, still not fully accustomed to being addressed by the cover name the Underground had supplied them. Marshall was Stephen's real last name, prior to Vincent sponsoring him as a scholarship student at St. John's Academy instead of formally adopting him as he had Julien. They stood, Tara taking the opportunity to recover from her surprise with as much aplomb as possible.

Gwen must have established their new identities as a married couple under Stephen's birth name. No wonder he'd been talking about a fresh start, settling down in a colony somewhere like they were regular people.

The administrator didn't appear to notice her fumble. “Follow me, please.”

They followed, the armed guard carving an efficient path through the crowd until they reached a larger desk with a much smaller, less-travelled group surrounding it. They waited for the family of four currently being seen to pass through the next checkpoint into the public grounds of the base, then stepped forward while their administrator presented their credentials.

“Mr. Stephen Marshall, engineer. Mrs. Tara Marshall, militia. Northbound.”

The bald, bored clerk at the desk gave the administrator's tablet a cursory look. He cocked an interested brow at Tara. “Says here you have formal military training?”

Tara responded with a curt salute, for the look of the thing. “Private security,” she hazarded. “Dante Foundation.”

He checked her credentials again. “Ah, yes. Central Park, says here. Can't say I blame you for wanting out of
that
particular brand of Hades. Almost as bad as the Bloody Square, if you ask me,” he said with the solid confidence of a man who had never been to either place. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. I recommend you try Ithaca Colony. I know the commanding officer there could make valuable use of your skills in their rebuilding efforts.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He nodded and waved them on their way. “Next.”

The administrator took them through the checkpoint and into the base, pointing out areas of interest as they walked along the neat paths. If possible, it was even colder here than it had been on the ferry, and windier besides. “Commissary,” he pointed out. “Med Bay, next to the official hospital.” They stopped in front of a large, brick building. “Transition Dormitories. Be ready to leave at a moment's notice, or you risk losing your spot.” He pointed up at the PA speakers, on high poles dotted along the walkways. “You're in Gold Group.”

Stephen pulled out the dingy yellow labels buried within the wad of vouchers for approval. The administrator gave them a nod, and marched away with his guards. She watched him leave, feeling the weight of the world—or at least one city of it—pressing down around them.

Tara couldn't see the Statue from here. Perhaps it was better that way.

Chapter Seven

They came for her in the middle of the night.

Unable to sleep, she and Stephen lay pressed together under the meager covers of a narrow cot, in a long room of other crowded bunk beds and sleeping forms on the floor, using their belongings as pillows. Tara crowded against Stephen's warmth, letting his steady heartbeat drown her ears, while he wrapped his arms around her and tried to pass the time reading by the streetlamp shining its weak light through a dust-filmed window.

Snores filled the eerie dark, interspersed by the occasional muffled weeping and quickly hushed sigh. Tara pressed to the thin layers of Stephen's shirt, and tried to pretend she was anywhere else. Mostly, she tried not to dwell on the fight to come.

Stephen must have sensed her anxiety. He read to her, as she had read to him in their leaky shanty and he'd laid in bed too ill to read for himself. She listened to his night-rough voice and rhythmic cadences of
Romeo and Juliet.
Better that, she mused, drifting on a gentle dark sea, than
Julius Caesar.

He whispered the words against the crown of her head, murmured them more softly still, warming her chill temple as he brushed her hair back. His hand slid beneath her silken hair, cool, stale air drifting across her neck. He tilted her head slightly, so she would open her eyes and look at him.

“‘She doth teach the torches to burn bright',” he finished, and kissed her.

Tara's body filled with liquid heat, as though the sun had unexpectedly burned its way through the open window above them. Her hand clenched tighter in Stephen's sweater, pulling him with her as she shifted onto her back. He gave a muffled sound of surprise, followed by a deep growl of satisfaction.

Having found the path to forgetting, Tara hurtled forward, heedless of potential danger. Her legs curled and tangled with Stephen's, her hands burrowing beneath layers of blanket and fabric until they found his warm, strong, bare back. He reflexively pressed harder into her, deepening the kiss until their tongues entwined. His book fell from their one pillow to the floor with a dull thud.

Light flooded over them, startling them apart like guilty teenagers. Breathing hard from both surprise and racing adrenaline, they turned away from the blinding light. Sleepy snarls protested from all around them.

The light flickered off as abruptly as it appeared. “It's her.” The voice sounded amused.

“Miss Fitzpatrick, you need to come with us.”

Tara's heart pounded painfully in her chest as she unwound herself from Stephen and got to her feet. Her muscles trembled slightly.

“Not him,” the one in charge hissed, as Stephen gathered their belongings.

“Where she goes I go,” Stephen snapped back, still slightly out of breath.

“And if he stays, I stay,” Tara added, groping for his hand in the dark.

The voice swore unintelligibly. “We don't have for this. Come on, then—both of you.”

They picked their way over bodies and belongings in the dark, Tara guiding Stephen along behind her because she refused to relinquish his hand. They finally made it into the milky light of the corridor beyond, where they quickened their pace to a near-run. The voices, Tara found, belonged to two men in the military uniform of the Island.

They took Tara and Stephen outside and through the compound, wind and water surrounding them like a solid wall. They reached the military port where a boat awaited them, manned by more Ellis Island military. Despite bone-rattling cold, Tara felt as though she were burning through her clothes with fever.

They climbed aboard, earning frowns at Stephen's presence, followed by accepting shrugs all around.

“She did say they wouldn't be separated,” the one in charge pointed out, sounding annoyed and proving Gwen's influence behind this mad escape.

The boat made quick work of the harbor, south to Liberty Island. Tara gripped the railing and stared as the statue came into full view. “It's
finished
?”

Stephen grinned at her. “Surprise. It was supposed to be unveiled tonight in a big to-do. I was going to show it to you privately, before the party.”

Despite her worry, Tara filled with pride. Stephen—
her
Stephen—had restored the Statue of Liberty. At Vincent's instruction, sure—but she knew he'd done it for her.

Lady Liberty shone copper bright again, the sea air not yet having time to provide its signature green patina over the metal. Her torch raised high over the harbor once more. There was hope there, just as there'd been the first time she'd seen it as a child, before the Bloody Square. She felt it again now, joining her pride for Stephen until tears stung her eyes. Whatever doubts she may have harbored in regards to her feelings for Stephen were whisked away in the howling wind as they turned wide with the current on their approach to the island. She loved him, fully and truly.

And in a rush of the old familiar anger, she determined Julien-bloody-Dante had no right to take that away from her.

She was going to win.

Tara left Stephen at the edge of the woods between the visitor center where a bonfire illuminated the crowd of bundled onlookers enjoying hot food, beverages of the homemade alcoholic variety, and waited for the torch's unveiling.

“Go on,” she told him, giving him a little shove in their direction. “I'll be fine.”

Stephen hesitated, looking down into her eyes. He smiled, seeming to sense the change in her.

“I'll see you soon,” he said, kissing her temple. “Be careful. He's not worth so much as a broken nail.”

She nodded. “Time to finish what we started.” She kissed him hard before striding off.

Stephen stood there, startled, then broke into a wide grin.

Tara circled Fort Wood, keeping to cover as much as possible. The museum lights were on, but that could be from the event planners. After a long while with no movement in or out of the building, she gave a mental shrug and broke cover.

Her breath came in little frosted puffs as she climbed the stairs, managing her energy until she reached a Zen-like state of being instinctively in tune with each and every given moment. She kept her hands deep in her pockets, her pace casual. No need to advertise she was gearing up for a fight.

No need to advertise she was at all concerned at the idea of a fight. Gwen had told her, time and time again, her greatest advantage lay in the element of surprise. Tara fully intended to lead off with that. The rest she would play by ear, adapting and twisting as necessary. After all, this wasn't a sparring ring, but life and death.

Tara would just have to see to it life was hers by the end—the rest was up to Julien.

She entered the illuminated but apparently empty museum, the door swinging shut with a mute echo. Her footsteps were silent on the polished floor, and she knew immediately she wasn't alone. She felt the vibrations of Julien's presence all along her skin. Once, it would have excited her, creating a pool of luxuriant, bubbling heat in her stomach until she felt a little giddy. To earn that soft smile of pleasure, the approving flash of blue, blue eyes…

Now, she realized, it wasn't enough. And it wasn't her. Even in apparent desire he'd held himself apart from her, separate,
other.
He'd given nothing of himself, while expecting unwavering, blind
all
from her.

Stephen was far from blind, but he gave her everything of him, regardless, without condition. Julien had insisted she be less than she was by seeking to conform her character into what he needed her to be, while Stephen pushed her to be more, never once faltering in his faith in her. What she had foolishly taken for Julien's confidence in her she now saw as entitled arrogance.

She found Julien in the torch room of the museum. His back was to her, one hand resting on the upper railing of the display and the other in the pants pocket of his elegant suit. Even shot and bleeding in his own bed, Julien hadn't had a hair so much as out of place. Julien emanated a certain untouchable quality, which probably explained why she'd always waited for him to make an initial move in their long, non-courtship, and thrilled so intensely when he did.

“Hello, Tara,” he said, turning with the smile she'd loved so much, once.

“Julien,” she replied, relieved when her voice remained steady. She stopped a few feet from the entrance and waited, leaving a large swath of floor between them like an abyss that could not be breached.

He took a few steps toward her, unwittingly filling the breach like one of Gwen's victims filling one of her infamous silences. “This was supposed to be your night, you know. You were going to light the torch. Imagine my surprise to find I hadn't been invited.”

Tara stood at ease, hands clasped behind her back. Stephen's innovation in powering the torch with solar power stored during the day so the “flame” would be illuminated at night had been a work a genius, one she would have been proud to reveal to the world. “Well, considering I didn't even know about it…”

Julien chuckled, visibly relaxing as he closed the distance between them. She looked up into his beautiful, chiseled face and felt nothing but contempt. “Vincent and his damnable secrets.” He reached one hand to brush the damp, curling hair from her eyes.

Tara whipped her hand out from behind her back and shot him square in the chest with her stun gun. At close range.

Julien flew off his feet and hit the ground several yards away, sliding on the polished floor, ruining the lines of his expensive suit.

“Funny thing about secrets,” Tara said, strolling toward him as he slowly got to his hands and knees. “Turns out everyone has them.” She lashed her foot out like a striking cobra. Her steel toes smashed him in the ribs and sent him flying once more.

Coughing interspersed with laughter, Julien struggled to his feet. “The cat finally draws her claws. I wondered what it would take.”

“Betrayal will generally do it every time,” Tara returned, maintaining the calm of a still lake—on the surface. Beneath, her mind and blood raced with possibilities and the knife's edge of preparation versus reaction. The reality of Julien's superiority in the sparring ring never left her. She couldn't let her early advantage make her overconfident.

But something happened to her, as she watched Julien limp toward her with that pleased, arrogant smile. The bubbling of anger in her belly didn't flood her, as it normally would have by now. It percolated, built on itself and grew steadily, but under her control. Anger became something else entirely. Energy buzzed in her veins, made her muscles fluid and ready.

“You're already a gifted dancer technically,” Gwen had said to her once, ages ago—or had it been just a few days, perhaps a week? “You just need to learn to lose yourself in the music.
Let go,
Tara.”

Tara exhaled, a strange serenity coming over her as she accepted the outcome of the fight, before it even started. Without knowing what the outcome would be. It was the fight that mattered.

Julien stood a few feet from her, clenching and unclenching his fists in a sure signal of his preparing to engage. “Did it ever occur to you, all those times in the ring, that I might be holding back?”

He launched himself at her.

Tara ducked and whirled away, arm swinging up as she faced him coming from the other direction. “Of course it did.” She ducked and dodged and blocked some more, as Gwen did to work out Tara's emotions to a point where she could focus. On Julien it served the opposite affect—building his anger to boiling.

“But I'm damned sure,” she added, “it never once occurred to you.” She grabbed his arm as it flew by and flipped him head over heels until he landed on his back once more, cracking his head on the wood floor. It should have been a difficult evasive maneuver for her. Instead, his momentum and her calm made it the most natural thing in the world.

Julien's rage reached a point where he was actually landing hits now. Flashes of pain in ribs and stomach and shoulder, quickly pushed away in the wake of her narrowed focus. Tara employed a few offensive strikes of her own, highly calculated for those few moments he left himself open. On one such occasion, she instinctively followed through, only to find herself spun head over heels in mockery of her earlier maneuver.

She landed with startling precision through a glass display case. Glass erupted musically around her, pricking and slicing into her bare skin, a discordant note in her graceful dance. Before she could free herself, Julien's hand descended and hauled her out by the collar of her shirt as though bringing to heel a recalcitrant puppy.

He threw her to the floor, where she rolled out of reach to catch her breath. “What's the matter, Tara mine? No righteous, witty little comebacks? Gwen will be
so
disappointed when she hears.”

Tara struggled to her feet. “I'm not—

Yours
, she never got to say, as his fist smashed into the side of her face. Beyond the stunning pain lay the realization he was still holding back. He backhanded her the other direction, picked her up, and threw her with great force against the nearest wall.

She slammed into brick and landed on the floor in a limp heap. Leveraging herself on hands and shaking arms, she spat out blood and shards of molar. His rapid footstep grew louder as he came after her.

Mistake. She turned and lashed out her foot again, catching him in a most unfortunate juncture. He doubled over and she executed a snap kick from her prone position to his perfect face. He staggered back, and she had room to pull herself up using the brick and mortar of the wall behind her, and slipped her knives from her boots on the sly. She leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Julien roared after her. Her arm slashed up, slicing open his arm. Fine droplets of blood splashed upward in a long, thin, curving arc.

Rage finally got the better of him. While Tara struggled with every fiber of her being to maintain control, Julien utterly lost it.