“Sarah?” I murmured. She jumped a little. I squeezed her hand. “Are we alone down here? As far as you know?”
Sarah took a deep breath. I glanced back, and saw that her eyes were starting to glow faintly. That was a good sign. As long as she had something to focus on, she wouldn’t dwell on the fact that we were potentially being followed by people who’d been equipped to block telepathy like hers. Margaret had lost her charm, and was hence “visible” to Sarah’s specific way of looking. The others weren’t.
Two hidebehinds watching us from behind the service door; homeless man asleep in an alcove; family of bugbears passing through,Sarah reported finally. And rats. Lots of rats.
“Which means none of Bill’s servitors have been through here recently. That’s good.” Servitors were the lizard-man servants of William the dragon. They used to be humans, before they were kidnapped and mutated by a snake cult. These days, they mostly skulked around in tunnels, eating rats and trying not to be seen. Nothing gets complicated like a cryptid ecosystem.
It is?
Sarah sounded anxious enough that I doubted she even realized she wasn’t speaking aloud. I squeezed her hand. “It is. There’s nothing down here that can’t defend itself.” I was including us in that statement. I had my weapons, I had Margaret’s weapons, and I knew my environment. As long as we could avoid being flattened by a train, we were almost in the clear.
The tracks ahead of us were becoming easier to see; we were almost to Christopher Street. I started walking faster, pulling Sarah with me. The light from the platform was like a beacon guiding us home. We were almost there when the tracks began vibrating under my feet.
“Run!” I shouted.
We ran. When we reached the platform, I boosted Sarah up, ignoring the startled looks from the people waiting for their train home. I threw her suitcase after her. Then I grabbed the edge of the platform and vaulted myself clear, my feet moving out of the danger zone a mere second before the train came rushing into the station. My heart pounding in my ears, I bent forward and braced my hands against my knees, panting.
“Lady? You okay?”
“Fine.” I lifted my head, forcing a grin. My Good Samaritan recoiled. I guess my grin wasn’t all that reassuring. “Sarah, come on. We have to get out of here.”
Wordlessly, Sarah grabbed her bag off the platform and nodded to me. I took her hand again, and we ran for the tunnel connecting the PATH station with the subway. If we could just catch the train, we’d be safe.
We caught the train.
The ride from Christopher Street to the Meatpacking District was short, which was a good thing, since I don’t think either of us could have handled a long trip bundled into a metal box full of strangers. Sarah kept her head bowed and her eyes closed, looking for all the world like a wilted flower. I knew that meant that she was scanning the people around us constantly, looking for signs of danger. She was going to have one hell of a headache by the time we reached the Nest. I couldn’t say that it wasn’t worth it.
When we pulled into our final destination, I tugged her out of her seat and led her, eyes still closed, out of the train. I didn’t leave the station. Instead, I walked the both of us over to the benches against the nearest wall and pushed Sarah into a sitting position, whispering, “Keep looking.” Then I pulled out my phone.
Uncle Mike answered on the third ring. “Where are you?”
“Hey, Mom. I picked up that movie you wanted.” Translation: I may be under surveillance, I am currently at the train station. If I’d been on the street, I would have picked up the dry cleaning; in a bus station, the groceries. It was a simple code, but it worked more than well enough for our purposes.
“Shit. Sarah with you?”
“Yes, that sounds good.”
“She been compromised?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Shit.”This time, the profanity was delivered with far more feeling. “What can I do?”
“Did you check the mail today? I’m expecting a package.”
“Sure thing. Hang on the line.” I heard the soft clunk as Mike put the phone down, followed by the equally soft, but far more ominous “snick” of a crossbow bolt being slotted into place.
Sarah’s eyes were still closed. I put my hand on her shoulder and waited, feeling like an ingénue in a bad horror movie. At any moment, the Covenant would burst out of their hiding places and take us out, and no matter how hard I fought, there was no way I’d be able to hold them all off. We’d be overwhelmed, and no one would ever find our bodies—
“Very? You there?”
“I’m here.”
“The coast is clear outside the slaughterhouse. If you can get up to street level, I can cover you.”
“We’re on our way.” I shoved the phone back into my pocket and took hold of Sarah’s arm, pulling her to her feet. “Come on. We need to go.”
She opened her eyes, the last of the glow dying from her pupils as she turned to look at me. “Is it safe?”
“We’ll find out. This way.”
I led her out of the station and up the stairs to street level. Uncle Mike was standing in front of the tiny bodega that connected to the Nest. I wanted to run to him. Instead, I walked at a conservative pace, pulling Sarah along with me. When he saw us, he nodded and stepped back inside, holding the door open until we got there. We followed him in, and he closed the door behind us. We were safe at last . . . for now. The question was, what were we going to do to make sure we stayed that way?
Fourteen
“The worst thing in the world is burying family. The second worst thing is telling somebody else that they’ll have to do it.”
The Meatpacking District, which is nicer than it sounds, inside a converted warehouse that’s sort of beginning to resemble a clown car with all these people in it
ISTAS AND RYAN WERE WAITING for us in the main room of the slaughterhouse. Ryan looked concerned. Istas looked faintly bored, and was chewing on something that looked suspiciously like the bottom half of a rat. I decided that asking would be a bad idea if I ever wanted to eat again.
“The Covenant is staying at Sarah’s hotel, so Sarah’s staying with us now,” I announced.
“Are you both okay?” asked Uncle Mike.
Sniffling, Sarah shook her head. Then she nodded. Then she shook her head again.
I came to the rescue, saying, “We’re shaken up, but we’re fine. Ryan, do you want to show Sarah to one of the open offices, so she can put down her things? She’s going to be here until all of this is taken care of. It’s not safe for her to go back to her hotel.” It wasn’t safe for her to go back to anyhotel, if the Covenant had charms that could block her telepathy. That was the only natural defense she had.
“On it,” said Ryan. He offered Sarah a faintly bemused smile, clearly not sure why she looked familiar. “Can I take your bags?”
“Okay,” whispered Sarah. She handed him the backpack with her school books and homework in it, and I handed him her suitcase. She kept hold of her laptop, still hugging it against her chest like a talisman. Then she wandered off after Ryan, following him toward the nearest set of stairs. Istas followed them, still chewing on her probably-a-rat. That was good. I wanted a few minutes alone with Uncle Mike.
The two of us stood silently until Sarah and the others were up the stairs. Then he turned to me, and said, “Report?”
“I reached the roof of Sarah’s hotel without incident. She came and let me in. We went down the stairs, and were met in the hall by Margaret Healy, who was warded against Sarah’s telepathy. Someone must have warned her that she might be dealing with a psychic.” Someone like Dominic. I should have been more suspicious from the very start—but then again, hindsight is the only perfect vision. “Margaret arrived at the door to Sarah’s room while we were trying to clear out. She picked the lock, and once she was inside, she started demanding to know where I was. Sarah was trying to convince her that I was already gone when my phone rang—shit, my phone. I still don’t know who called.” I reached for my pocket.