I took advantage of Vize’s indecision and ran toward him again. As I did, a burst of Danann essence swept above me, and Guild security agents dove from behind. They skimmed over the pavement in front of me, outpacing me. In one smooth motion, they grabbed Vize by the arms and swept him into the air.
I stopped running, facing the Hound. He relaxed his fighting stance and stared at me over the swaddling of a scarf across his face. I was close enough finally for his essence to register in my vision, coalescing into a familiar, yet changed, body signature. My jaw dropped in recognition as he sheathed the sword and leaped into a shattered window in the building next to him. I shouted, my frustration echoing through the empty alley. Gone.
And so was Vize. I had lost him again.
37
With the wail of its siren, the fire truck surged by the end of the alley as I reached the street. Murdock perched on the top of the truck with Gerry slumped against his side. The truck vanished into a billowing cloud of smoke. The Dead and the solitaries continued fighting in a fog of the Taint. I skirted the side of a building and ran back to Eorla’s car. Rand kept watch outside. Behind him, the firestorm had abated, a building lying in ruins on each side of the street. I surprised myself with a small prayer of thanks when I saw Eorla in the car. She was okay. I jumped in the back as Rand took the driver’s seat. Eorla reached over and held my hand.
“Vize was captured by Guild security agents,” I said. Rand didn’t wait for Eorla to respond and hit the gas.
A bright pink flash illuminated the interior of the car. Joe shouted as inertia kicked in and zipped him backwards through the car. He hit the rear window and tumbled to the floor as Rand slammed on the brakes. Eorla and I lurched forward. Joe shot into the console between the front seats and fell to the floor again. Seeing we weren’t in danger, Rand hit the gas. Joe pushed himself up with a dazed look on his face. “Meryl didn’t mention you were in a moving car,” he said.
“Where is she, Joe? Is she all right?”
He shook his shaggy head like a dog. “She’s fine. She’s fine. Some chrome-domes were hassling her at your place, but I put an end to that, I’ll tell you. You should have seen them when I was done with them. Actually, you couldn’t see them when I was done because they flew off like little baby birds being chased by a . . . a . . . a littler bird, right? A littler scary bird with a sword . . .”
Eorla cleared her throat.
“Joe, this is Grand Duchess Eorla Kruge Elvendottir of the Elven King’s Court. Eorla, this is Joe Stinkwort. He’s an old friend,” I said.
She held her hand out to him. “I am pleased to meet you, Master Stinkwort. You sound most formidable.”
Joe managed to stand. He examined her hand suspiciously, then touched his forehead to it. “Pleasure, m’lady. And it’s Joe Flit, if you don’t mind.”
“Where’s Meryl?” I asked.
He stepped onto the seat to peer out the window. “I’d say about four blocks ahead.”
Over his head, I met Eorla’s eyes. “We need to go get her.”
Eorla tilted her head. “I don’t think that’s wise, Connor. The Guild’s command center is set up at the end of the bridge. I can assert my rank down by the power plant, but you may end up in their hands if we go back.”
I gestured toward the fighting blocking the street. “That’s not an alternate route.”
“The Oh No bridge is still there,” said Joe. “The steel’s warped a little, but the trolls couldn’t do anything with it.”
“Then we’ll run the bridge if we have to,” I said.
Eorla shook her head. “You’re not making this easy.”
“I don’t care. Tell Meryl we’re coming, Joe,” I said. He winked out.
Rand chanted in the front seat. A shroud of essence poured out of him and enveloped the car. He shifted his tone, and the barrier spell compressed around the car.
Eorla sighed. “Alvud would be disappointed to see this.”
I gently squeezed her hand. Anything I said would be trite to the ears of a widow of a centuries-long marriage. She didn’t withdraw her hand, which was enough to tell me I was right. Silence in the face of grief can be as powerful as words.
Something hit the back of the car, and Eorla clenched my hand. The car lifted on its front wheels and skittered forward. Sparks flew across the windshield as metal met pavement. The car slammed down onto the street and lurched to a stop. Rand accelerated, but we didn’t move. “I believe the axle’s broken, ma’am,” he said.
I looked up out the window. “That was a Danann blast. They’re shooting at anything.”
Eorla opened her door. The fires had not yet spread that far up the street, but fey folk were moving toward us fast. Rand took Eorla’s arm as we struggled through sidewalks obstructed by compacted ice and piles of plowed snow. We took to the street to make faster progress.
No one had any reservations about throwing essence at us. The Taint did that, stripped people of their reason and goaded them into baser aggressions. Even fairies and elves unaffiliated with solitaries and the Dead were firing on us. The oppressive pressure on the neighborhood from the Guild and the police had exploded, and the Taint gave license to express bottled-up rage.
The Old Northern Avenue bridge became visible. Haze from the fires shifted in the arcs of searchlights and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. The patter of gunfire echoed down alleys, but no one armed came our way. Yet. The slow steady bursts of tank gunfire rumbled from the south.
A small figure dressed in black strode down the middle of the road. I didn’t need to see Joe’s pink essence light swirling around her to recognize her. Meryl didn’t change her pace when she realized it was me, but the moment we were close enough, she threw her arms around me. She eyed Eorla up and down. “Your daring escape skills need some sharpening, Eorla. We should do lunch.”
Eorla didn’t rise to the bait. “Agreed. At the moment, however, we need to keep the rioters from overtaking us and the Guild from arresting Connor.”
Meryl looked down the street at the burning warehouses. “On the plus side, with this fire, I’m not chilly anymore.”
The smoke haze obscured a clear view of the Old Northern Avenue bridge. “Joe, do some recon ahead, then see if we can get out past Summer Street.”
He winked away. And blinked back. “What’s recon?”
“The bridge, Joe. See what’s happening on the bridge,” I said. He saluted and vanished again.
I turned to Eorla. “Can your dwarf friends hide us?”
She shook her head. “The plan was for them to disappear. They’re long gone by now.”
Meryl grabbed my arm. Back toward the bridge, tanks rumbled out of the alleys and swiveled onto Old Northern. National Guardsmen followed on foot, shielding themselves behind trucks and the tanks as they spread out and took positions across the road. In a matter of moments, hundreds of weapons were pointed at us. Behind, the rioting fey churned their way toward us in a maelstrom of dark green Taint. Solitaries backed toward us as the Dead pressed them toward the bridge. And the guns and the tanks.
“This is going to be a slaughter,” I said.
Eorla gazed up at the sky, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the Taint. She faced Meryl. “You know we can stop this.”
Meryl frowned. “Do I?”
Calm as ever, as if we were not about to be crushed between competing factions, Eorla casually folded her arms. “You did it at Forest Hills. You collapsed the Celtic half of the spell.”
Meryl shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
Eorla moved closer to her. “That’s because you didn’t do it. The drys did. You were the means to an end. We can do the same thing here.”