Dusk (11 page)

Chapter Eight

Lucy walked up Eighth Avenue, shivering. She wished she’d brought
a heavier jacket because the temperature had dropped when it got dark, but it
was too late now.
I’ll be warm soon enough,
she thought, trying to
remember which cross street the hotel sat on. She passed Forty-Fifth, dodging a
cluster of jet-lagged Chinese tourists snapping pictures of everything,
including her, to her annoyance. They’d clearly drifted away from Times Square.
Lucy wished they’d stop blocking the sidewalk and stepped into the street to
walk around them. She just wanted to go somewhere she could rest. It was the
middle of the night, after all.

Although I have no idea if I’ll be able to sleep in this city. Not
anymore.
Her head
was killing her because her newly awakened empathy was in overload in the
middle of Manhattan. She could literally feel thousands of people’s emotions as
she huddled into her jacket. It hurt. A lot. She walked a little faster.
At least the feeling of doom has gone away,
mostly. Thank goodness for small favors.

When she tripped on a subway grate and barely managed to keep
herself from falling, she forced herself to slow down.
Leaving Solomon was
stupid,
she finally admitted, staring at the sidewalk. She’d freaked out
because she could sense Solomon’s emotions after they’d had sex, and she knew
he wasn’t as calm on the inside as he pretended to be on the outside. And the
energy rocketing through her brain had thoroughly frightened her. It reminded
her of when she’d been injured and helpless. So she’d run, and now she
regretted it. No one’s inner balance was perfect.
She
wasn’t perfect.
She should’ve given Solomon a chance.

“You’re an idiot, Lucy,” she muttered, ignoring the strange look
from a woman standing in the doorway of a building. She forced a smile,
breaking the cardinal rule of no eye contact. The woman scurried inside.

Huh. I must look truly awful,
she thought. People didn’t usually run away from her on the
street. She walked faster, then breathed a sigh of relief when she hit Fifty-first.
She rounded the corner. The small awning of the hotel she wanted was lit and
welcoming. She skirted a bag of garbage and heaved a sigh of relief when she
realized there was nobody around. She passed the closed doors of a restaurant
and walked faster, then almost tripped on something only half-seen in her path.

“Shit!” She froze as her heart tried to climb out of her chest. A
Spider sat on the sidewalk in front of her. She hurriedly backed up, the skin
of her arm prickling. The dark crystal of its alien body glittered malevolently
beneath the city lights. Quickly, she brought up the hand with Solomon’s ring
and extended it.
God, I hope this works,
she thought, breathing so hard
she felt faint.

It skittered forward. Lucy held her breath as the ring shield
activated, shimmering like a dark veil over the cement. She took a step back,
but the Spider hit the shield and disintegrated. Lucy kept her arm
outstretched, praying there weren’t any more around. No such luck. Another
crawled out from between two bricks, then another joined it. Lucy backed up
further until her feet hit the garbage bag she’d avoided earlier. Before she
could run, a huge wave of Spiders poured out of the cracks of the building on
her left and headed right for her. She stifled a scream. No one would hear her.
No one would come in the middle of the night, in the middle of the city. The
mass of them seemed to hit the shield all at once and it bowed inward with the
force of them, sizzling with energy, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before it
failed.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she muttered, gripping her outstretched arm at
the wrist with her other hand. “I really don’t want to die.” She glanced
around. No one in sight. She began to back away, slowly, even as more Spiders
poured out of the building.

This is what you get for running,
she told herself, tripping on a
loose piece of concrete.
The sidewalk on this street needs work,
she
thought vaguely.

Abruptly, the ring shield died. Lucy let her arms fall and stopped
trying to flee. What was the point? The first Spider touched her leg and scrambled
up her pants.
It’s going for my skin,
she thought, remembering the
searing pain.
This is going to be a horrible way to die.
The Spider
touched her finger, and Lucy had a moment’s panic—
it feels like a needle
—but
then it disintegrated into sand before she could even scream.

She blinked, confused. She began to step back again, grinding her
heel into the grit on the sidewalk.
What just happened?
Another Spider skittered
up her clothes and touched her hand before she could brush it away. This time
she felt her body give off energy in a brief pulse as it dissolved.
Oh my
God,
she thought, confused for a moment, but then she remembered the
pairing.
Solomon knew this might happen,
she realized. She stepped back
again, putting her back to the wall. More Spiders crawled up her legs and she
fought her instincts, letting them climb. She wanted to cry, but what would be
the point? Eventually, they would still kill her. They’d smother her. Or
exhaust her to death. She already grew more tired as her body worked to destroy
the silicate aliens.

“Lucy!” someone yelled.

She didn’t look up.
Maybe I’ll just go to sleep now,
she
thought, slumping down the side of the wall to the ground. The lights around
her looked like streaks on a wet windshield. Even the wind felt odd. When she
tipped her head up, the orange sky darkened, then flashed an odd green.
The
aurora?

“Damn it,” a man’s voice said. “She’s going into shock.”

“I’ve got her,” another voice said.

A pulse of energy shot through the air and she shuddered. It felt
like Solomon, but not quite. Her body absorbed some of it, just enough to keep
her awake. “Where am I?” she asked thickly.

“You’re safe,” Bruno said.

Lucy blinked up at the Sentry. “You’re not Solomon.”

“No, but he’s coming,” he said, face set in grim lines.

“Did you see the green lights?” she asked.

“She’s losing consciousness,” the other voice said, and she tipped
her head towards the man crouched on her right. He looked familiar.

“Green like an aurora in the sky,” she forced herself to say. “Look.”
The sky pulsed again.

The man with the silver-speckled green eyes looked up, then
blanched. “Bruno, look up.”

The Sentry on her left glanced up, then cursed. “That’s impossible.”

The other man frowned. “Not so much. Look, it’s spreading.”

Lucy stared at the sky. The green glowed brighter. “Don’t be mad,”
she whispered.
Solomon is going to kill me,
she thought, remembering the
expression on his face when he promised to keep her safe.

Bruno didn’t even look down at her. He glared at the other man. “Just
pick her up, Isaac, and let’s get out of here before all hell breaks loose.”

Oh. Isaac is Solomon’s other brother,
Lucy thought as she felt herself
being gathered up, but then the darkness closed in on her and she felt nothing
more.

****

Lucy woke abruptly, bolting upright. Her cheeks were wet and she
knew she’d been crying in her sleep. Again. She wiped her face, and then her
eyes went to the windows across the mostly empty room. Outside, a faint dome of
green still washed across the light polluted city sky like an infection. She
looked down, shuddering. She was in a large room with a pillar that looked just
like the one in Eva and Greyson’s house in the center. The walls were made of
glass. The Manhattan skyline twinkled below them and she realized she must be
up very high somewhere.

“She’s awake,” Isaac said, from her left.

Lucy glanced at him. He had the same brown hair as Solomon, but
his eyes were different. Solomon’s were a soft brown.
Warm and comforting,
even with the silver specks in them.
This man’s eyes were green and the
silver shards glittered so intensely she had to look away. Unfortunately, her
gaze fell next on Bruno, Solomon’s other brother. The truly scary one.

“That didn’t take long,” Bruno replied, striding over. His blond
hair was disheveled, but his piercing blue and silver eyes glared down at her
as if she was to blame for what had happened.

She swallowed, trying to get moisture to her suddenly dry throat. “Where’s
Solomon?” She shifted, realizing that she was sitting on a comfortable sofa
angled to take advantage of the view. “Where am I?”

“He’s on his way. You were only out for a few minutes,” Bruno
said. “We brought you to my place.”

Lucy tried to calm her racing heart, but was only partially
successful. “Why is the sky green?” She glanced outside again.

“Because our camouflage shield failed,” Bruno said, his face
tightening.

“It didn’t fail,” Isaac said, walking over to her with a glass of
water. “It was hacked.”

Lucy accepted the glass gratefully and drank half of the cool
liquid down in one swallow before she spoke again. “Hacked? How is that even
possible?” She coughed and sipped more water. “I didn’t even know there was a
shield at all.”

“It didn’t fail
yet.
” Bruno sighed, and for the first time
she saw the exhaustion behind the public face of the Sentry’s leader. “We have
no idea how it was done. Hopefully Solomon will be able to figure it out.”

“He’s coming here?” Lucy wondered if he was going to fly the
starship.

“As soon as he can,” Isaac said, sitting next to her. He rubbed
his face tiredly.

“Is the shield what I’m feeling?” she asked him.

Isaac let his hand drop and turned to her. “What are you feeling?”

She frowned. His emotions swirled around her and she knew that he
was fishing for information. He wasn’t sure he could trust her. Strangely, the
overwhelming press of humanity she’d felt walking on the street was muted. Not
gone, but not nearly as strong.
Maybe because we’re so high up,
she
mused. She took a deep breath. “You can trust me,” she told him.

His eyebrows flew up.

“I can feel your worry,” she said.

He tapped a finger on his knee, then leaned in and lifted her
right wrist. Lucy didn’t resist as he stared at the silver jewelry on her finger.
“This is Solomon’s ring. I thought it had been lost over a hundred years ago.
He refused to speak of it.” He ran a thumb over the cool metal.

She nodded slowly. “Yes. It saved me.”

“By the time we found you, the ring shield had died,” Bruno said.

Lucy flinched. She didn’t need the reminder. She knew full well
what had happened.
And what didn’t happen,
she thought, confused all
over again. Why hadn’t the Spiders killed her?
It has something to do with
Solomon. And pairing,
she decided. “Yes, I know,” she said aloud. “You don’t
need to remind me.”

“You’ve paired with Solomon,” Isaac said, dropping her hand.

She twisted her fingers together. “It’s not a crime.” She didn’t
know what he wanted from her. Clearly, being able to sense emotions didn’t
provide you with immediate answers about other people’s thought processes. She
shifted uncomfortably. The last thing she wanted to do was antagonize Solomon’s
brothers.

He blinked. “I didn’t say it was.”

Lucy caught the edge of his emotions and realized he was simply
surprised, not angry. Bruno, on the other hand, was angry, but not at her. His
anger felt… old. Like he’d been carrying it around with him for so long he didn’t
even notice it anymore.

“You didn’t explain what you’re feeling,” Isaac reminded her,
pulling her attention from Bruno.

She nodded. “It’s the shield, I think. It’s all wrong, and not
just the color. I mean, I couldn’t feel anything like this before Solomon and
I…” She trailed off, blushing. “Before.” She took another swallow of her water.
“But then it felt like someone was pushing down on us. Like I couldn’t get
enough air.”

Bruno moved closer, nodding. “That’s what it feels like to me,
too.” He frowned. “And none of us should feel anything at all from the
camouflage. It’s hidden. Seamless. That’s the
point
of it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and for the first
time, Lucy realized he was dressed in slacks and a dress shirt as if he’d been
awake the entire night.

For all I know, he has,
she thought. She glanced at Isaac. He wore sweatpants and an old
concert t-shirt. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. She opened her
mouth to ask Bruno if anyone else knew about the problems with the camouflage
shield, when suddenly the pillar in the center of his room began to glow. Her
heart gave a hard thump. Three people moved
within
the stone. Lucy
caught her breath, hoping this wasn’t another attack, but then Greyson, Eva,
and Solomon stepped out of the solid pillar and into Bruno’s space.

Impossible,
she thought, hand on her throat. She stared at Solomon. He wore the same
clothes he’d had on last night, when he’d taken her to the woods. Had that
really been only a few short hours ago?