She did not once look back, because she feared what she would see. As she ran, she tried to analyze the wraiths’ capabilities, but laughed at the ridiculousness of what she was doing. Yesterday she was a normal woman in a normal city, with unremarkable concerns and a few personal demons. Now…
What was she now? She was no longer sure.
They killed him when we were there. If they are from Veronica, they couldn’t just kill him on their own. They needed us. They needed the letter. She couldn’t work it out, and her aching muscles and straining lungs distracted her from her thoughts.
At last she reached Beach Street, in the heart of Chinatown, and looked back for the first time. She saw two wraith-things following, though they made some pretense at hiding. They had no faces, yet she knew they were looking her way. The plan had failed-perhaps it had never had a hope of success-and in a display of naked fear, she turned and gave them both the finger. “Fuck you!” she shouted. Her voice echoed emptily along the street.
The road was lined with shops, several of them boarded up, and piles of refuse. There were signs in Chinese and colorful lanterns hanging from lampposts, but they looked as though they had seen better days. Where there ought to have been tailor shops and restaurants, there were mostly dingy apartments and shuttered storefronts. Walls had been sprayed with gang signs, and people were wandering the street in small, threatening groups. Though Chinatown in general seemed more badly damaged than other streets she’d passed down-which meant that it differed dramatically from one Boston to the next-this particular block seemed to have escaped substantial damage.
Trix slowed to a fast walk, glancing back one more time and wondering if everyone could see the wraiths. Why not? Why should only I be able to see them? She had no clue, and not knowing was always more frightening than the truth.
“What the fuck’s up with your hair?” a voice said. The kid was taller than her, maybe fourteen years old, pimply skin darkened by a line of tattoo ants crawling around his neck and up one cheek. There were several other youths standing behind him, feigning attitude but exuding fear. Some were Asian.
Here we go, she thought, saying, “Got a problem with pink, Ant Man?”
He scoffed, bristling when a couple of his compatriots chuckled. “Got a mouth on you, bitch!”
“Bitch?” It was Trix’s turn to bristle. “Your mother know you talk to women like that?” She took a step forward, the boy’s fear apparent, and for a couple of seconds she enjoyed it. “People are dead in Boston tonight, kid. You want to give me shit when a thousand people are buried under rubble?”
He stood taller, glancing left and right- Can he see them, can he ?-then looked down at his feet.
“Your families all okay?” Trix asked.
“Yeah,” Ant Man said. “We just dunno what to do.”
“Looks like you got off easy,” she said, “but you could help me. I’m looking for Sally Bennet.”
“You an’ everyone else,” the boy said. He turned and pointed along the street.
Trix had assumed they were just another milling group. But half a dozen buildings ahead, a line of people snaked down the steps from a front door and twenty feet along the street. There must have been thirty people there.
“They’re all seeing Sally?”
“Yeah. Few from round here, some people I’ve never seen before.”
“You give them shit, too?” The boy looked ashamed, and Trix smiled to put him at ease. “Take it easy, kid,” she said.
“Name’s Marcus.”
“It’s a good name.” She passed them by and hurried along the street, and as she approached the queue she made out the people standing there in more detail. Black, white, Hispanic, men, women, and several children, they stood in silence, shuffling forward slowly as a huge woman exited the building and hurried down the steps.
The number of people here surprised her. Had they all gone through some ritual to find Sally, as she and Jim had done at the traffic island and then the restaurant back in their Boston? She doubted that, given the short time since the quake. And she wondered what that said about Veronica-that she had a greater distance between her and the people and city she was there to protect.
So many missing people, Trix thought. She stopped in the middle of the road, and several people glanced at her. One pointed farther along the sidewalk. “There’s a line, ” the man said.
“Yeah.” Trix looked back the way she had come. Ant Man and his hangers-on were walking briskly along the street, and none of them seemed to notice the pale figure crouched atop a two-story house at the far corner. Another hid in shadows across the street. Just waiting , she thought. Watching. At least Jim took one of them with him. She pressed her hand to her jeans pocket, pretending to touch the letter she did not have, and then stormed up the steps and into the run-down building.
A few voices of protest followed her in, and she heard shock at her lack of respect. But she’d apologize later. If they knew why she was here, they’d say nothing. If they were aware of what had happened, and that their Oracle’s life was in danger, they’d have piled in behind her and protected her all the way. Inside the building she smelled cooking vegetables and heard loud, pulsing music, and the line of people led behind the staircase and into a low doorway beneath. She’s in the basement as if she’s hiding away. Hands clasped at Trix as she pushed by, and a few more voices rose in anger, but she forced herself down the darkened staircase. She stumbled, missed a step, and was helped on her way by a shove in the back. She twisted as she fell and saw the angry man glaring down at her. “Wait your turn!” he whispered as she slid down the wooden stairs on her back.
She grunted as she hit the cellar floor, pulling herself to her feet and quickly sensing the different atmosphere down here. She looked sidelong at the walls, expecting to see a thin place, but this was something else.
This was humanity in need, in the presence of a power that might give aid.
“Impatient for bad news?” a voice said. Trix turned slowly and looked to the far end of the basement room.
The girl sitting on a ratty wicker chair couldn’t have been much more than eleven years old. She was black, wearing jeans and a grubby Miley Cyrus T-shirt, and holding the hand of a woman kneeling by her side. Trix had never seen a child so haunted and devoid of hope.
“Sally?” she asked. The girl nodded. “Sally, I have something terrible to tell you. I think Veronica wants you dead.”
The girl sighed. “I thought as much. C’mere, lady. You better tell me everything.”
“First…” Trix started shaking. “There are men without faces.”
Sally’s eyes opened wide. And then, in the building above, people began to scream.
Where four streets met at odd angles, and the traffic island was home to a statue that Jim did not recognize, Jenny’s parents’ restaurant sat at one prominent corner. Back in Boston it was called Junction 58, and he was thrilled-and a little chilled-to see that it had the same name here. Its ornate glass frontage had shattered to the street, spilling the outdoor tables and chairs that were stacked overnight beneath the awning, but he was still looking at a sight familiar and well loved, and he felt something right itself in his mind. It’s not all madness, he thought, and then his brief fantasy was blown away.
Jenny’s mother stepped out from the restaurant. They lived in the three-story apartment upstairs, and their first reaction after the earthquake must have been to come down to the street, checking the damage on the way. She was waving a menu before her face as if hot, and she was almost the woman Jim had known for so long. Almost, but not quite. Slighter than he remembered, hair longer and darker, face a little more weathered-looking, this was Jenny’s mother as she might be five or ten years down the road.