The Burning City (24 page)

“Hi, Anthony.” June kept her voice polite and even. “I thought we should try to be friends. We’ve had a lot of misunderstandings.”

Anthony didn’t speak, wrapping his arms around himself and glancing around the room. His eyes flashed.

No matter how it went, no good could come from this conversation.

Sam leaned against the desk. “I was wondering if you had any updates on Robbie.”

Anthony swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah. I got an update for you all right.”

June held her breath.

“Robbie is planning something big.” Anthony shifted from foot to foot. “I talked to him. Directly. I met with him today.”

Sam stepped away from the desk. “You saw him?”

Anthony nodded. “I…yes. I convinced some of his guys to take me to him. I pretended I’m thinking about joining him.”

The air crackled with tension. Suddenly, Anthony lurched back, jerking his shoulders up around his ears. This was a precursor to Sam rushing forward and grabbing him by the arms. June gritted her teeth. So much for playing it cool.

“Where did you meet him?” Sam demanded. “Where is he?”

“Sam,” June warned.

“Tell me where he is.” Sam spoke in his face.

“He’s inside the Institute!” Anthony yelped.

Sam released him. June stared at Anthony, relieved but chagrined. She had some apologizing to do. She also had a hell of a lot of questions.

“What do you mean he’s inside the Institute?” Sam asked.

Anthony huddled in on himself. “He’s hiding inside the Institute. His guys took me in to see him.”

“How the hell is he inside the Institute?” Sam took a step back. “That place is locked up. There’s cops everywhere. No one can get in.”

“You underestimate my brother.” Anthony shuddered. “I mean, not that you’re not smart—”

“He did underestimate your brother,” June said. “I think everyone did. Are you going to tell us how the hell you got inside to see him?” This was a back-up test, another layer of reassurance. If he told the truth, he was good.

“There’s this walkway.” Anthony looked warily at her. “They took me through it from inside a parking garage, after they made me wait forever while Robbie was busy. He had to make sure I was reminded we always do things on his time.” He grimaced. “Remember I heard him say something about hacking into a security system? Him and his people have taken over the security system inside the Institute. No one knows they’re there. They can get in and out, and they can move around unmonitored.”

Anthony’s eyes flashed. He scrunched up his face and touched the back of his arm. June walked over to him.

“We put a chip on you.” She gripped his shoulders and turned him around. “We’ve been tracking you.”

She brushed her fingertips down the back of his arm. He cringed but didn’t pull away. She found the edge of the chip and carefully peeled it off. He turned back around.

“Remember when I grabbed your arm?” She lifted the thin piece of plastic in front of his face. “We had to make sure you weren’t playing us, that you weren’t working for Robbie.”

Anthony gaped at the chip.

“I’m sorry.” June handed the chip off to Sam. “I’m also sorry that I’ve doubted you and treated you badly. You can understand why I had misgivings.”

“I guess.” Anthony spoke tightly. “You had to be pretty clever to get that on me without me seeing it.”

“Yeah. We’ve learned to be clever. Survival.”

“How did your brother get inside the Institute?” Sam asked. “Did he tell you?”

Anthony nodded. “Robbie has always had people inside the Institute feeding him information, helping him. Some were in the Paranormal Alliance.”

Sam clenched his jaw. “So Robbie used his inside men to get in?”

Anthony nodded again. “He said this has been in the works for years. He said he let you do all the grunt work. His plan was to get the Institute shut down—which you did for him—and then get inside. They’ve locked the place up, but his ways in were left open. His people made sure.”

“That’s insane.” June marveled at the information. “That’s a hell of a lot of moving parts. Risky too.”

“He’s smart, and bold.” Anthony looked down. “The people guarding the Institute right now are his people. No one is going to get inside without him knowing about it. Not cops, not FBI, not anyone.”

Sam turned in a slow circle. “All right… So he’s inside. I unwittingly helped him get in there. I’ll accept that. But.” He turned back to Anthony. “Why? Why is he inside the Institute?”

Anthony looked up. His eyes flashed.

“Because he’s going to blow the place up.”

June stared at him. Sam stared at him. For a moment, June was sure she’d stepped into some cheesy action movie. Blow up a building?

“What?” Sam said. “Blow it up?”

“He bragged about it the entire time I was there. He hasn’t changed a bit, except he’s a lot more powerful than I remember. I can feel it rolling off him, see it under his skin. It’s terrifying.”

“He’s going to blow the building up?” June tried to wrap her mind around it. “How is he going to manage that?”

“They’ve got the place wired. He said it’s not ready yet, but it will be soon.”

“While I support the idea of that place falling into ruins,” Sam said, “isn’t that a bit grandiose, even for him?”

“He says it’s all part of the plan to ensure his place among his followers.” Anthony chewed his lower lip. “He’s giving them a gift. He’s putting a real end to the Institute. He says they’ll follow him to Hell and back when he’s done. Or to war.”

Sam walked over to the windows. “This is absolutely insane….”

“I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“I believe it,” June said. “This sounds exactly like his brand of megalomania.”

Sam turned from the windows. “Did he give you any idea when this Bond villain scheme of his is going to take place?”

“Soon.” Anthony’s voice fell. “I have two days.”

June frowned. “Two days?”

“To make my decision.”

“What decision?” Sam asked.

“To join him or not.” He rubbed the back of his arm where the chip had been. “He wants me by his side. He says we’ll be unstoppable together. If my answer is yes, I’m supposed to go back to the Institute and join him.”

June gazed at him. “And if your answer is no?”

Anthony gazed back at her, silent.

“We’ll figure something out,” Sam said. “We’ll get you the hell out of town.”

Anthony laughed bitterly. “There’s nowhere to hide from him. Not for me. I could go to Antarctica and he’d find me. And knowing what he’s up to?” He shook his head. “He wouldn’t let me get away. I’m trapped. That’s the way he wants it. He gets his little brother back, one way or another.”

All three of them had brother issues, in vastly different ways.

“I can’t let Robbie do this,” Sam said. “I can’t let him get away with it.”

June drew a deep breath. Her side ached. “A lot of people could get hurt if he brings that building down. There’s always people out front.”

“It’s not just the people.” Sam’s voice was grim. “Or even the building. I don’t care about the building. Let it crumble. But Robbie is right. If he does this, his followers will rally behind him with monstrous ferocity. The fence sitters will fall off onto his side. His army will wash this city in blood and kill every person who doesn’t agree with them, paranormal and normal alike. The Institute won’t be the only thing in ashes.”

A chill raced down June’s spine.

“You’re right,” Anthony said, soft and distant. “This is his way of kick starting the apocalypse.”

However, no man was an island, and neither was Chicago.

“He can try to take over,” June said, “but he can’t take over the world. This is just one city.”

Sam’s eyes were ablaze. “Yes, but it’s my goddamn city.”

* * * *

Mr. Capelli had silver hair and blue eyes. He had a warm smile, wide and white. The soft sagging lines on his face reminded June of her mother’s favorite white leather armchair, all squishy and fold-y.

June and Jason were ten. They’d been living in California for a year, and it was completely different from Rhode Island. Always sunny and hot, no seasons. No leaves turning colors, no snow on the ground. Sometimes in winter, it got chilly and gray, but that was it. June still hadn’t adjusted, but then, she hadn’t adjusted to a lot of things: the absence of her father, the constant tension in her mother’s voice, the way she felt like an even bigger weirdo at school than she ever had in Rhode Island. Everyone seemed richer and smarter and more popular than she was. She got made fun of for being short, for being skinny, for not eating most of her lunch because it made her sick.

Mr. Capelli’s visits were the one part of her new life she liked. He came over every other weekend and stayed for a few hours, talking to her and Jason about their voices. June’s voice was another source of weirdness for her. The anxiety-inducing levels of attention she put into not saying the wrong thing or hurting anybody, or not ruining anyone else’s family, made her miserable. Jason never used his voice. He hadn’t for a long time, since Katie died. She envied him, how it seemed so easy for him.

Mr. Capelli showed them books about people with supernatural powers. He talked about all the different powers people had and how they struggled with them. He taught them techniques for using their voices safely, how open-ended commands caused the most harm, how they had to make sure the tasks could be completed so the spell would break. June practiced with him, but Jason never did. Their voices didn’t affect Mr. Capelli, but he didn’t explain why.

Sometimes after a lesson, he would take them for ice cream or to the park. His voice was soothing, and she liked to listen to him talk.

“I know you feel like the strangest person in the world,” he said to her, one bright Saturday afternoon. They sat on a bench in the park near her apartment. Jason climbed on a nearby jungle gym.

“There’s lots of strange people, aren’t there?” June asked.

“Yes. And people without powers will try to make you feel bad about it. They’ll try to make you feel like a freak. But remember, you’re important and useful. You’re special, and you’ll do special things in your life.”

“What will I do that’s special?”

He looked down at her. “You’ll do greater things than you could ever imagine. Even if you’re scared, even if you don’t know what to do next, you’ll find the specialness inside you and do what has to be done. You’ll save people.”

Jason sat on the jungle gym, way at the top, legs dangling through the bars.

“Like a superhero?” June asked.

He chuckled. “Yes, like a superhero.”

“How do you know I’ll do those things?”

“Because I see it inside you.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Being a hero means doing the right thing, doing the hard thing, even when it doesn’t benefit you. Being a hero is about sacrifice, and it takes a strong person to sacrifice. The strongest kind of people. I see that strong person inside you.”

“What is sacrificing?”

“It means giving up a part of yourself to make someone else happy, or to save them. It means your love for someone or something else is stronger than your love for yourself. Like your mother. She’s given up many things for your happiness, because she loves you.”

That didn’t sound so great. In fact, it sounded scary. But she loved her mother, and she wanted to be just like her.

“I want to be special.” She nodded. “I want to be a hero.”

“You will be. But you must give it time. The day will come. I see many things.”

“What kind of things do you see?”

He smiled. “All things.”

“How do you see everything?”

“I’m special too. We’re all special in our own ways.”

“It must be hard to see everything. Isn’t that a lot to see?”

He squinted over at Jason. “Oh, yes. But sometimes I get to just sit on a bench and talk about it, and those are the nice times. Especially when someone is listening.”

She swung her legs, sneakers scuffing the ground. Jason swung down off one of the bars in the middle of the jungle gym and dangled in mid-air. She thought about love and about being special. She thought about being a hero.

Sacrifice.

Sitting on the couch in the silence, the night thick outside the windows, June stared down at her phone. Her mother’s voice still rang in her ears. The constant litany of “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,” as June continued pretending everything was all right, that they were coming home soon, that Jason was fine.

The sound of her mother singing her opera rang in June’s ears, too, down through the years. The scales and harmonies, the way she’d sing in the kitchen in the morning, the pieces she’d practice for auditions. But the auditions became fewer and fewer as the need to work and provide swelled over her dreams. The sacrifices she made for her children slowly took her voice away.

June looked at the front door, everything inside her as still as the house.

Mr. Capelli never explained how much being a hero sucked, how nobility was far less pleasant than self-interest.

She stood. The door was open to the night. She walked toward it.

Outside on the porch, Sam sat in a chair. He looked like he had the night Muse died, lost and vacant.

June walked over and sat down in the chair adjacent to him. She looked toward the spot where Occam had dumped the body.

“I don’t know what to do,” Sam said. “I can’t pull one idea out of my head.”

June didn’t speak.

“I have to stop him. If I don’t stop him, this will be catastrophic. What it will bring down on this city will be terrible and irreversible.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“How can I possibly get in there? Even if I change my appearance, getting past Robbie’s watchful eye will be nearly impossible.”

June looked down at her hands, folded between her knees.

“And even if I do get in there.” He shook his head. “What do I do? How do I stop him? I can’t fight that man. I can’t do anything to him. He can end me with a thought.”

June clicked her nails together.