Velocity (26 page)

(TRICK OR TREAT)

I OPENED MY
eyes and watched the fan make lazy circles above. The bed felt warm and comfortable, and I didn’t want to move. The memory of what Henry and I had done last night rushed back, and a pleasant blush warmed my cheeks.

Tingles of electricity were dancing across my skin. My wrists ached beneath the bandages, but less than I would have imagined. I frowned. I sudden felt a shiver of unease. I chalked it up to the memory of being attacked.

Henry was still sleeping beside me. Turning over, I traced circles on his bare back. He stirred, stretching his arms out, and turned around, eyes still soft with sleep. He smiled at me. “Good morning.”

He leaned in for a kiss.

A woman’s scream broke through the silence. We stopped, lips inches apart, and stared at each other. His brown irises had darkened despite the light from the lamp, a sign that his emotions were brewing.

Another scream, louder, choked with desperation.

Without a word, both of us jumped up. I rushed out of bed, throwing on my confiscated shirt and fled to the window overlooking the street. Henry wasn’t far behind me.

The screamer was standing alone in the middle of the street. The torn hem of her dress dangled below her knees. Brown clothes were lumped up beside her in a large pile. A car that I assumed was hers was beside that, the hazard lights still on and both doors open. The lights flickered and shut off.

“Why is no one coming to help her?” I asked. “What do you think happened?”

“She hit that guy,” Henry murmured, sounding distracted. I pressed my face to the glass and saw the bundle of clothes was actually a man’s body. His arms and legs were bent at crooked angles. A faint sheen of blood stood out on the street. My heart clunked hard.

“What time is it?” Henry asked. I frowned. It was midnight dark outside. The only reason we could see the woman clearly was the street lamp. Strange, it felt like morning.
Good morning
, Henry had said, so he had felt the same way.

I went to the bedside table and yanked up the huge-numbered clock.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, pulling it up enough to show him. “Look.” It read 9:00 am.

“That’s impossible.” He frowned as he pulled on his jeans.

“It feels like morning, doesn’t it?” I insisted. “We weren’t up that late last night.”

He slid his phone out of his jean pocket, and I tried to ignore the pleasant sight of his defined hipbones. There was so much going on, but I kept recalling the feel of his skin on mine and it distracted me. He frowned at the phone screen.

“What?”

He held it out, showing it to me. 9:03.

Outside, the woman’s scream abruptly cut off. We raced back to the glass. Gunshots went off and the woman, her eyes wide, was backing away. Then she turned and ran off. I thought I made out shadows following after her.

“Something’s very wrong,” I repeated.

He started pulling on the rest of his clothes and tossed me my pants. “We need to figure out what happened. It could have been some kind of natural disaster, a supervolcano or something. If it was, the whole world could be blanketed in ash―”

I walked up and put my arms around him. He looked down at me, a frown line embedded between his brows.

“Henry’s, it’s not a volcano,” I said softly. “It’s Thornhill. This is their d-day.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be for a few weeks. And how could they stop it from being daytime?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Turn on the TV,” he commanded.

I switched on the screen. It was all static. I found the remote and scanned channels, but there was nothing but noisy, unsettling fuzz. I shut it off.

Henry was trying to make a phone call “There’s no signal,” he said. “I had full bars last night.”

I checked the phone I’d stolen at the hospital, but it was the same result. Henry picked up the hotel phone and hit the buttons, punching it with increasingly rapid agitation. “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.

The phone dropped back to cradle and the bell inside vibrated.

“Should we stay here and wait for help or go?” he asked.

“No help is coming. We need to get out of here. Who knows if we can even stop them.”

“Ariel, I just don’t understand how Thornhill could possibly do this,” he argued. “I’ve gone really far into believing in ghosts and shadows and the cult that my father is a part of. But turning the sky black? Messing up the electronics? That’s science fiction.”

“We’re living science fiction, Henry! We need to get outside and figure out what’s going on.”

I knew I had to tell him the rest of my truth. It was now or never, and while he could still run away, maybe I’d be less scary than the unknown that waited out there.

“There’s one thing that I never told you,” I began. “Dad thinks I’m the one who has to stop their ritual.”

Henry’s frown deepened. “Why?”

“Because of my blood. According to a woman who knew what she was talking about, one of my ancestors mated with an angel. So I have a tie to Luminos, and that makes me powerful.”

“I need to sit down,” Henry said, his face going pale as he dropped onto the bed.

“I know. That was my reaction, too. But it explains a lot of why I am the way I am.”

“So, this Luminos place, the realm of angels and demons. The one your father was talking about. That’s real?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s what’s making them all crazy?”

“We think so.”

“So what can you do about it? How can your blood help? I’m certainly not going to let you sacrifice yourself, I’d rather die.”

My voice softened, and I went over and sat beside him. “It doesn’t have to come down to that. I also supposedly have a tap on a powerful holy light. I don’t know how to use it against him yet, or even exactly what it is, but I will find out.”

The lights flickered above us, and we watched them go out and turn back on.

“We need to get out of the hotel,” I repeated. “Even if it is a natural disaster, we have no supplies, no food other than the minibar. And if this is just a dust storm, those peanuts are like six dollars.”

“That’s not funny,” Henry said, biting his bottom lip.

“Most of my jokes usually aren’t,” I said, trying to coax a smile out of him. He rolled his eyes and pretended to push me off the bed. For a moment, he seemed to debate inside his head. Then he stood up and took my hand.

“Let’s go, then.”

Opening the door, we peered out into the deserted hallway. Henry crept out in front of me, holding my hand. There was no noise except for the humming elevators and our creaking footsteps. Such a strange contrast to last night, when every TV seemed to be blaring and people had been shouting. Were we alone? I doubted it, I could sense others in their rooms, maybe pressed up against the doors, waiting.

Two feet from the elevators, the lights flickered. We stopped and waited.

“We need to skip the elevators,” Henry said.

“Yeah, last thing we need is to get stuck in a metal death cage when the power goes out,” I said.

Henry snickered despite himself and squeezed my hand. I smiled nervously at him.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said.

The lights were still having trouble staying on. We finally reached the stairwell and began walking down, taking the stairs as fast as we could. It was cold and dim, our footsteps the only sounds, and it gave me too much time to debate what had happened.

What had Thornhill done? Had they already performed the ritual? Was this Dark on earth?

The lights went off again, and this time they didn’t come back on for thirty seconds. Screams echoed on the floor above us. So we weren’t alone.

The air was charged with static. Henry listened at the door, then looked back at me, suddenly very levelheaded and in control. “Once we got out there, we might not be safe anymore,” he said. “We’ve got to be on our guard.”

I nodded. “Open the door.”

Two steps in, the lights gave out for good. The lobby was just light enough to see. All the beautiful crystal chandeliers were useless now. Shadows enveloped the sculpted benches and potted palms, and I could sense them moving. We made it halfway into the center of the carpet, still holding hands and looking around. Why weren’t there any people?

Then there was a scuffling sound. “Both of you, stop!” shouted a man’s voice. Behind the desk, the attentive clerk from the night before shot up and pointed what appeared to be a shotgun at us. The twin barrels stared at us like black eyes.

We stopped and put our hands up. “We’re not going to cause any trouble,” Henry said calmly. “Just put the gun down.”

“No way,” the clerk said. “I got plenty of bullets to go around.”

“What’s going on, do you know?” I asked him. He sized me up with his ratty eyes. His suit jacket was gone, and the knot of his tie was pulled down.

“I have no idea, man,” he said suddenly. “I wasn’t even supposed to have to work last night. I covered my friend’s shift. I don’t even live in this town, I live over in Wixom.” He ran his hands through his hair, getting manic and shifting. “Just woke up this morning and the sun hasn’t come up.

“At first, everyone was coming down and freaking out,” he continued. “Most people left but some are still upstairs. No one knows what’s going on. Things went crazy this morning, people running through the streets. No cell phones working. It’s the apocalypse.”

Henry slowly inched his shoulder in front of me.

“You’re not a human shield,” I hissed at him, my jackhammer heart ready to give out. “You can’t deflect a bullet.”

“Don’t fight with me, Ariel. If he shoots, go for the door,” Henry whispered back.

“What are you two whispering about?” the man barked, straightening the drooping shotgun in our direction again. Our hands went up higher.

“Calm down, okay?” Henry said. He still seemed so unfazed, it was almost eerie. “We don’t have any idea what’s going on either.”

“Just get the hell out!” the clerk shouted, the gun trembling. “I don’t trust nobody. Throw the lock, and then you and your girlfriend get out. I don’t want anyone down here with me.”

“Let’s not argue with his gun,” I said, pressing my face into Henry’s shoulder.

We rushed to the exit door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the street. We heard the lock click into place behind us, and when I looked back I saw the manager scurrying back to his post with the shotgun bobbing beside him.

The air outside was even thicker and made it harder to breathe normally. I could sense the shadows all around us, rustling and taking form.

“Do you see them? The shadows?” I asked.

Henry nodded, his mouth in a grim line as he scanned the empty street. He checked his phone and there still wasn’t a signal.

“We need to get to my car,” he said, grabbing my arm as we began to run.

There was no one around that we could see and it was unnaturally silent. There were still a few cars in the parking lot. We reached our destination at his car.

“Get inside,” he commanded, and I complied.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the key. Nothing. He twisted his wrist again, but the engine wouldn’t fire.

“Goddammit,” he said, hitting the steering wheel that beeped in annoyance. He ran his hand through his hair and looked back at me. “I’ll be right back.”

He popped the hood and got back out I watched through the windshield as he looked around at the engine. I didn’t bother with the seat belt. He came back and opened the passenger door.

“It’s a no go, I’m afraid. They cut the wires clean, and the battery is missing. Sorry. I shouldn’t have thought it would be this easy.”

He popped open the glove compartment and started rummaging around inside, turning up a screwdriver and his taser. The screwdriver went into his pocket. He tried the taser, but it wouldn’t even turn on. He tossed it into the back seat.

“So Thornhill found us here?” I wondered aloud.

“Yes.” His face didn’t betray any emotion.

“Why didn’t they just come inside and get us? With everything going down, and that crazy guy at the desk, it wouldn’t have been that hard to storm the hotel.”

“I don’t know, dear. If it really is Thornhill, if this is their d-day, and if you’re as important to them as we think, then they must want to get us. But you know it’s my father’s style to be theatrical. He’s playing games, I have a feeling. It’s best to keep moving and don’t let them find us.”

He grabbed my hand and we crossed the parking lot.

“We should go to the jail and get my dad,” I said.

“I don’t know if I’d trust the cops after how Stauner reacted,” Henry warned.

“We should be able to post bond or something. He might know what to do. If they haven’t just all run amok.”

“We will do what we can,” Henry said.

There were no cars in the streets. I’d never seen them look so empty. We followed the sidewalk past the businesses, all of them dark. The skeleton in the dress shop window leered down at us. Around the side of the building, Henry sharply yanked me into an alleyway.