City of Burning Shadows (Apocrypha: The Dying World) (25 page)

I needed Syed’s help. One monster on my side to help keep me safe from the rest. “Work with me. Help me keep things calm while we move Spark to safety. Help me not get killed.”

“I will not follow you into stupidity.”
 

I tried again with the one gruesome leverage I had. “If they kill Spark and me both…”

The leverage I thought I had. Syed shrugged and sank back into his chair. “Then it will slow me down. But I will find them, one way or another.”

With or without me, he meant.
 

I couldn’t waste any more time arguing. “I’m going to go look after my friends. This was fun, though. We’ll have to do it again.”

I felt, or thought I felt, the cold chill of his stare between my shoulderblades all the way out into the street.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Safehouse

The lizards were gone, off to keep the city safe. Safer. But even an army of lizards would only be a stopgap. Miroc was poised to explode. I could feel it in the air. All it needed was one final push, one match lit at the wrong time and place.
 

Smoke. I could taste the gritty, bitter edge of it in the air. I couldn’t see it, not yet. But if this kept on, soon the air would be thick with it. The fires from the bombings yesterday still burned. Miroc barely had the resources to keep them contained; dousing them was too much to ask. I remembered this smell, this taste, this tension. Miroc had survived the first round of riots. As had I, barely. I didn’t imagine either of us would make it through two.

I leaned forward, pushed my bike as fast as I dared. Spark might be the one person left who could change things, who could stop this march towards destruction. Syed might believe I was heading into a trap, but what could he know for sure? He’d already fled when I fought the creature inside Micah. Fought and won. The fact I was still in this meant they didn’t know everything, that they weren’t as powerful, as inescapable as he had implied.

Cutting across downtown would have been the most direct route to Spark, but that would have taken me by the university fires and possibly other bomb sites. I circled wide, dodging my way through outer-city streets clogged with derelict vehicles and shanty towns. Decaying neighborhoods where I had to pull up my scarf to protect my face from the blowing sand that had claimed nearly everything.
 

My city. My home. Even if Seana
could
keep me safe, give me shelter in the Crescent that would doubtless survive any chaos down below, I couldn’t turn my back on Miroc. I couldn’t stand to the side and watch it die. The gods had abandoned these people. I wouldn’t.

Which would all be a moot point if the shadows killed me.

I slowed down just enough I wouldn’t die as I pulled out my wireless and called Iris back. “I’m almost there. Where are you?”

“In place. Spark and Vogg are packing up, but nobody here’s happy with the news.”

Just because we’d run out of good options didn’t mean any of us were thrilled about the bad ones. “Who came with you?”

Iris’s voice got softer, muffled. I could envision her talking behind her hand, trying to keep anyone else from hearing. “It’s just me. P&B security won’t add anything but trouble, and with the…situation…Amelia thought it was best to limit the number of people involved.”

Limit our chance of betrayal, limit the number of potentially possessed people in the room. Amelia was on top of things and thank the gods for that. “Try to keep the safehouse guards inside. The less contact they have with the Jansynians—”

“Yes, Ash,” Iris cut me off. “I never would have thought of that because, after all, I’m an idiot who’s never done this before.”

In some strange way, it was reassuring to hear Iris snapping at me. “Just…be careful, okay? We can assume none of the guards there are possessed—”

“Because Spark’s still alive.”

“Right. And since Amelia went to Seana, and no one’s talked about the location over open airways, or outside closed doors…”

“It’s possible the monster’s still a step behind us.”

Monsters, plural. And Syed had made it sound like a given they would know, like he knew they had inside information. But then he’d also seemed pretty dismissive of all of us that weren’t like him.
 

I turned into the neighborhood at the same time two Desavris hovercars came flying over a cluster of old, wrecked vehicles. “Incoming,” I said, and slid the wireless into my pocket as I leaned forward to keep pace with them.

I didn’t recognize any faces in the security team. Not that that meant anything. We pulled up in front of the safehouse together. Eight of them, with guns out and ready, climbed out of their cars. The one who had been driving the lead car held up a scanner, swept it around in a circle, then looked at me. “Ash Drake.”

I was still wearing the security dot. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It had to give me some sort of status in their eyes. I hoped. “I’m here to make sure this goes smoothly.”

“Director Seana gave us no instruction regarding your status.” He nodded to two of his men, who took up the easily recognizable position of watching me. “I must ask that you not involve yourself.”

I had to trust Seana, trust that she knew what she was doing. That she’d sent the right men to deal with this volatile situation. And ultimately, trust that she really had called off the hunt against Spark. Not out of the goodness of her heart, but because she wanted that satellite to work. She wanted Desavris to have the technology that would change everything.

I held up my hands to show they were empty, that I wasn’t a threat, at the same time that I willed the now-familiar pattern of power into my mind that let me see the presence of shadows. Just because Syed said it didn’t work all the time—and honestly, was I all-in ready to trust him?—it made me feel better when all I saw were eight identical sets of icy gray eyes. “The men inside are armed and jumpy,” I said. “They know me. Let me help.”

He glanced at his scanner again. Checking my clearance? Looking for something else? For all I knew, he had a readout on every gun in that building. “You’re an outside consultant. Not active security.”

“I’m not asking for a gun. I’m just asking you to let me talk to them.”

I couldn’t tell if my words were persuasive or if he’d somehow asked for and received new orders on his device. His expression showed no change. “Very well. You will go inside and you will bring out the Fyean and her bodyguard. No one else.”

“I can do that.”
 

He twitched his hand and the Jansynians took up a defensive arrangement around their cars, watching all directions. Good for Seana and Amelia for warning them there might be outside interference.

Except even as I was relieved they were letting me help, I was beginning to realize the true terror of what we were dealing with. Did these men know about the shadows, about the fact anyone could be possessed? They couldn’t know I wasn’t one of the bad guys. Just because I’d been fine when I left Seana this morning didn’t mean I wasn’t…compromised.

Iris, for that matter. I hadn’t seen her for hours. Although, like with the safehouse guards, the litmus test was whether Spark was still alive. I could trust the people who’d been with Spark—been with me, for that matter—and hadn’t tried to kill us. Right?
 

Gods, this paranoia. It was still sinking in, the implications of what Syed had said, the fact I had no way to tell shadow from friend until they tried to kill me.
 

I stopped at the door, looked back over my shoulder. The Jansynians hadn’t moved. No guns were trained on me, none of them suddenly moved to shoot me in the back.
 

Trust. If I thought about this too much, the fear, the suspicion, could paralyze me. I had to stay careful, keep alert, but I also had to keep moving. If we did nothing but cower in the corner, worried about enemies we couldn’t see, the city would crumble around us. And then it wouldn’t matter if we’d evaded the shadows or not.

I offered my back to the armed men behind me, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door to face the armed men in front of me.

#

I walked into the muzzle of Viktor’s very large gun, trained on the door. He lowered it, freeing my attention to take in Iris and Vogg, crowded together in the hall, with Spark peeking between them, and two more of the safehouse guards on either side of Vik. “How are we doing?” I managed a convincing calm voice.

Vik gestured with his gun, waving me away from the door. “You sure Price signed off on this?”
 

“I told you already.” Iris sounded impatient. Jumpy. Who could blame her?

“It’s fine,” I said, but was it?

Vik had talked to Iris, not Amelia. Iris had talked to me. If Iris was one of them—

But why the elaborate ruse? Iris knew where the safehouse was. She could get in anytime. Kill Spark. Get me alone. Kill me. No need for a Jansynian security team. No need to put Vik on alert. “It’s fine,” I repeated with more confidence.
 

“Priest Ash,” Vogg said, “you trust these Jansynians? You would give Spark to them?”

“No one is giving me to anyone.” Spark pushed past him. In a situation less dire, it would have been hilarious to watch the eight-foot-tall armored lizard man defer to the willowy four-foot-nothing woman. She held up the data stick I’d brought her. “I went through the information you brought me. The satellite, I can fix it. But I need to get in there.” She smacked Vogg on the knee. “Do you hear that? I
need
to get in. I can’t do any good holed up here.”

“The Jansynians want this satellite to work. And Spark’s the only one who can fix it.”

“You sure about that?” Iris asked, her eyes locked on mine, her entire body screaming mistrust.

I hesitated, my new friend, paranoia, kicking in. What
had
Seana said? Exactly? Something about working together. The importance of the project. She’d never said straight out they needed Spark, had she? That had been my idea. Had she carefully misled me, manipulated me?

First, last, and always. No matter how much she loved me, Seana had to do what was best for Desavris. “What are our chances if they start shooting at us?”

Vik snorted. All the answer I needed.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to make a decision. But it wasn’t really my decision to make. To Spark, I said, “I’m not sure, not one hundred percent. I believe they’re here honestly, but I want to believe that. If they’re here to kill you, then someone I want to trust is lying to me. So it’s your call, Spark. You think it’s worth the risk?”

She nodded, her huge green eyes pleading. “I can fix it.”

Good enough. “Iris, can you get out unnoticed?”

She rolled her eyes. “Again with the stupid questions?”

“I…right. Get out there where you can see. Follow us. Make sure, if something goes wrong, Amelia knows she’s been double-crossed.”

“This is a terrible plan,” she said, then her body shrunk and shriveled until a sleek black rat stood in her place. It stood up on its hind feet, shook its whiskers at me, then scurried off.

“Be ready,” I said to Vik.

“For what?”

Vogg answered for me. “To avenge our fallen bodies.”

And then there was nothing left but to do this. “Let’s go.”

Vogg caught my shoulder. “Priest Ash, I should go first. Then you, then Spark behind us.”

His job was to take the bullet for her. Or whatever the Jansynians shot out of their guns. “Not this time. I’m…cleared. I’m in their system. In the unlikely event they aren’t trying to kill us, I want to make this as relaxing for them as possible.”

Vogg stepped back and bowed with more grace than I would have expected from a giant armored lizard.
 

I put my hand on the door. Opened it. And stepped through.

#

Nothing terrible happened. No gunfire from the Jansynians in front of me. No gunfire from the men behind me. No sudden betrayals. No angry misunderstandings.
 

And most of all, no shadows.

All things considered, it was the best few minutes I’d had in weeks.

As I came out of the building, empty hands held out before me, with Vogg and Spark and no one else, about half the Jansynians lowered their guns. The others kept careful watch all around us, but I was utterly in favor of that. They opened the car door for us. Spark got in first, followed by Vogg and then me. The Jansynians settled in, and we were off.

For all that, I couldn’t relax. After the last few days, anything this easy had me suspicious. I kept turning to watch behind us, around us. Eyed the Jansynians for any odd behaviors. Snuck sidelong looks at Vogg. The one person I was sure of was Spark—

Gods, unless they’d taken her already and this was what Syed had been talking about, that I’d become their target—

No. No. I had to get this under control. If they wanted me dead, there were easier ways. And while the shadows could be anyone, there were only three of them. Eight Jansynians in the car, plus Vogg and Spark, plus Iris following. They could be anyone, but not everyone. I just had to stay alert and be ready when they broke cover.

Either Seana had warned the gate security or the Desavris guards really had the best poker faces of anyone in the universe. No one blinked at Spark and Vogg in the car. Not so much as a twitch. I smiled and waved at the now-familiar security faces. It earned me a nod—the closest thing to a warm welcome I was ever likely to get.

The guards escorted us to the lift, saw that we were settled, then sent Vogg and Spark and me up. These guards stayed below, to join the base security, and I let myself relax. “We made it.”

Vogg stood tense, arms crossed at the glass wall farthest from the door. “It is not over.”

The fact they’d let him keep his sword and his gun, the fact they hadn’t shot us all when we were in the car and basically helpless—a cautious optimism came to life inside me.
 

And Spark, it seemed, was thinking along similar lines. “If they wanted me dead, they could have killed me,” she said. She’d pressed her fingertips and forehead against the glass, watching the world drop away below us. “Jansynians are nothing if not efficient. Why go through all this trouble unless they mean it? They could have just blown up the safehouse soon as they knew where I was.”