Godspeed (26 page)

Just once, I wanted to look into those brilliant eyes I loved so well and find similar, if not equal, affection.

“She became a woman who frightened me, because she had within her the power to circumvent my defenses with nothing more than a single glance.” He buried his face into my neck, and my hair became damp as he finally gave way to tears. “You frightened me, because I knew that to love you and lose you would destroy me.”

I had no choice but to wonder, even now as he was speaking words that I had so longed to hear, if it was not still for Orchid he was weeping.

“I may have cheated both God and Death in my attempts to save you, but they were selfish intentions and both entities knew it. How I wish I could make this right. That I could return to that moment in time years ago when I lost my way. If I could, then perhaps the Fates would not be exacting such penance from me now. Maybe they…” He sobbed, clutching me to his chest as my breathing became ever more shallow. “Maybe they would let me keep you.”

I wished that I could whisper to him that it was all right, that even if I could not have his love, I wouldn't have wished away a moment of the time I had spent with him, or traded it for a lifetime of years in an empty, meaningless existence. Yet all I could say was this:

“I love you, Quinn Godspeed.”

His hands raced from my shoulders, gliding up my neck and finally onto my face.

“Abigail,” he gasped, his chest rising and falling rapidly with each breath. “My brave, precious Abigail.”

He took hold of me and kissed me. Slowly, fiercely, with all the pain and pleasure any such a touch could ever contain.

My arms enveloped him, and we clasped onto each other with strength beyond that either of us had ever possessed alone. I lost count of his kisses as he held me against his pounding heart, I only knew that no number of them could ever be enough for them to lose their power over me or quench the desperate need I had for more.

“Abigail.” A bitter voice repeated the word, punctuating the man's fury with the slamming of the door. “At last I learn your name.”

Quinn instantly drew my body away from his and swung me back, planting himself between Schuyler and I. “Stay where you are, sir.”

“I took you in off the street, Abigail, saved you from dying like an abandoned dog in the rain, and
this
is how you repay me.” Schuyler shrugged his coat from his shoulders and tossed it across the room. “This is how
both of you
repay me.”

“Schuyler—” I began, but the sound of my voice only poured fuel upon his rage. He cried out in more than a growl but something less than a scream — a wail of passion and agony the likes of which I had never heard in my life, and dearly wished I never would again.

Without another word he flung himself at Quinn. Quinn's reflexes were fast, and I was spinning away, out of the way, before Schuyler's first blow made contact upon his skin.

“Abigail, go,” Quinn directed.

“I won't leave you!” I began to look around for something, anything that I could use to intervene, to try to snap Schuyler back to his senses long enough for Quinn to subdue him. The man's strength had increased beyond that which seemed purely human; it was the power of one lashing out at life itself — the wrath of a man with absolutely nothing in the world left to lose or live for.

“Is love not of the heart, Quinn? Something beyond our mortal flesh?” Schuyler cried, furniture toppling to the side as he and Quinn struggled. “Shouldn't it be about two souls, well matched? Whose soul has ever been better matched to yours than mine!”

“Schuyler,” Quinn roared, as the tea service and the table it stood upon crashed to the ground. “Stop!”

“Is there no room in your heart for the only person who has always stood by you, no matter the danger, no matter the sorrow? The only person who would never leave you?”

“Abigail, go!” Quinn shouted now as he grappled with Schuyler, the two upending one piece of equipment after another as they battled.

I seized a pitcher of water and tossed the contents onto them both but found it had no effect but to make Schuyler more violent.

He picked Quinn up and threw him back against the wall, at which point I screamed so loud footsteps charged, running in our direction from upstairs.

Quinn bounced off of the wall with his fists at the ready, and though his head had knocked back soundly upon the paneling, he managed to land several blows in quick succession upon Schuyler's face, bloodying him but not managing to truly daze him.

Schuyler countered quickly. He grasped hold of Quinn's shirt and dragged him across the desk, finally pinning him down upon it. The motion knocked Quinn's antique oil lamp to the floor and it shattered upon impact; with a fearsome, sickening roar, the books and stacks of papers beside the desk caught and burst into flame.

Without hesitation I ran toward them. Even as he tried to fend off Schuyler's continuing assault, Quinn managed to push me away. “Run!” he insisted, as I continuously pulled at the back of Schuyler's shirt, refusing to abandon him.

“Schuyler, NO!” I screamed. In that instant Penn rushed into the room. He muttered a prayer at the sight of the flames and the two men, friends for a lifetime, landing blow after blow upon each other's already battered bodies.

“Penn! Get them OUT!” Quinn choked out in desperation, as Schuyler's hands encircled his throat, seeking to stop all sound.

Penn did as he was told, grabbed me by the arms and pulled me toward the door. Smoke filled the room and I struggled against it, and him, as he dragged me back by force and away from the only person in the world I gave a damn about living for.

“Let me go! Penn, please!” I begged, but Penn refused. He picked me up and carried me now, kicking and fighting him though I was, toward the staircase.

“Stop! We have to get them out!” He knew it was too late, and the fire would mean the end of the building. He had been charged with the solemn duty to be sure that it did not mean the end for us all.

“The girls. Get them out. I am not leaving without him.” I finally managed to claw my way free of his grasp. “I cannot — I will not — leave him.”

He hesitated.

“Are we all to die tonight?” I shivered as the noise of the fire roared and breathed all around us now. “Go, Penn,
please
!”

Accepting that he could not expect me to do the impossible, Penn finally relented, and took off up the stairs the way that he had come.

I turned and ran as fast as I could go. Godspeed's clockwork heart pounded and ground away within me, at the very limits of its tolerance as I began to cough in the thick, black smoke.

The fire moved at blinding speed, devouring everything in its path as it progressed toward equipment that I knew was beyond merely combustible: it was so dangerous that if anyone remained in the building much longer they would be destroyed in the explosion along with it.

“
All my life
I have loved you, Quinn,” Schuyler wailed, as he continued to drive his fists time and again into Quinn's beautiful face. “All my life I have taken care of you, longed for you, but you could not see. You
would not
see. Why was it so impossible for you to love me?” His entire body shook, his voice, faltering.

“Schuyler, you know I could not love any man in that way. It was never you, it's that I—”

“Don't say it!” Schuyler's words were as broken as his heart. “Orchid! Abigail! You loved them, but you could not accept the one who loved you most of all! For what? But for a few meaningless details of anatomy? Love is
so much more than that
!” His passion had full control of him now, and he had no idea just how much damage he was doing to the man he loved so much — or perhaps he did not care. Something in him had finally traversed the limits of reason. I tore at the back of his shirt once more, but he continued to ignore my presence, utterly. “I
loved
you, Quinn.
God
, how I loved you.”

Quinn looked near to unconsciousness by this point, and I knew on all fronts our time was running out. In absolute desperation, I sought something heavy with which to finally stop the unrelenting advance of his attacker.

I spied a quartz bookend upon the edge of the table beside me and picked it up, charging upon the man without thought and landing it squarely against the back of his skull.

The sound it made as it injured him sickened me, and I wished I was a woman who prayed so I could ask whatever gods may be for their forgiveness for what I had just done.

Schuyler was knocked off balance, his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

By this point, the fire had licked up the wall and begun to engulf the nearest section of ceiling. The creaking of beams and floor boards above us warned that soon they would come raining down, the detritus of all that Schuyler Algernon had spent his life building, intent on entombing us all.

Just as Quinn's head cleared enough to realize the blows had stopped, our eyes met, and held for the instant that it took for the blaze to do just as I'd feared.

Quinn propelled himself from the surface of the desk and grabbed me, knocking us both to the floor and out of the way of the falling beam. We heard a scream and realized that Schuyler had not been so fortunate; he was trapped now, pinned by both legs, beneath it.

“Quinn!” I pleaded with him, but I knew it was useless. He would never leave Schuyler here to die alone.

“Go, Abigail, please.” His eyes held a desperation I had never seen. “Please.” He staggered to his feet and began to try to free Schuyler from entrapment.

“Go!” Quinn shouted again, but this time he was not speaking to me.

Penn had returned, and was now quite prepared to drag me all the way out of the house in order to obey his master's command.

That was exactly what he did.

He pulled me into his arms, lifted me over his shoulder, and carried me out of the house by sheer strength of soul and will as I kept on screaming Quinn's name.

C
HAPTER
28

I STRUGGLED FOR AIR;
gasping, halting breaths of atmosphere too thick to be contained by my constricting lungs.

I wanted to scream, to call his name again but it was no use. Even if I'd had the ability now, the sound would have died away in my throat as my heart shattered below. The smoke billowed, black and thick from every brick and crevice of the wounded structure as it writhed and groaned in its death throes.

“GODSPEED!” I cried out at last, fighting to draw breath between sobs as I watched the conflagration consume everything before my eyes — and with it, I was certain, everything that mattered.

“You can't!” Penn struggled to hold me back. My unnatural strength surprised him, as I continued to fight him in my desperation to run to Quinn. I almost managed to wrench myself free when he slipped on the wet, icy ground, but still he held on.

The street was deserted, though it was clear that someone nearby must know something was wrong — I heard the muffled wail of a fire wagon in the distance. I knew it was already over; by the time they reached the house it'd be too late. With all of Quinn's powerful equipment inside, it was only a matter of seconds until the entire thing would be blown apart from within.

“NO!” I repeated, refusing to believe the tragedy even as it unfolded right in front of me.

“There's nothing you can do for him now!” Penn insisted, yanking me back more forcefully so that he could lead me toward Marielle and Lilibet. The pair of sisters huddled, shaking, across the concrete court. “He wanted you so much to live, Abigail, you cannot destroy all that remains of him.”

“I can save him!”

“No one could save him,” Penn replied, gathering me into his arms protectively. “But you loved him, and he believed it. That was something no one else had ever been able to give him.”

The sirens drew closer as snow began to fall anew, sifting down soft, white, and pure above the gathering inferno.

I could not bear it.

My heart thumped in my chest, and I felt zaps and pings of electricity that I was sure signified its own final beats. If I was to die, did it truly matter how? If Quinn was dead, there was no reason left in the world for me to fight to go on.

I buried my face in Penn's shoulder as my knees gave way. Together we collapsed into the snow, and I felt his own tears fall against my skin as he held me tight. We both shook, not only from the unforgiving cold but from the horror we felt at all we had lost — at what the entire world had just lost, without even knowing.

Then, amidst the crack of wood and roar of flame, a voice.

“Penn!”

Penn didn't even stop to look at me, he leapt up from the snow, and he ran.

He rushed off into the smoke, toward the sound of that muffled call that he alone could hear.

I fought the stinging snow and burning tears to try to see, but the smoke was much too thick.

Then at long last, I saw him: badly beaten, covered with ash, his clothing singed by flame.

Quinn Godspeed was alive.

He was dragging something — someone — and I realized that he had hold of Schuyler's arms. Penn grabbed onto the lifeless man's clothing and together they raced away from the house as quickly as they could.

“Run!” Penn shouted at me, though I knew I lacked the ability. An evil hissing sound built from within the withering building, and again he repeated the command. “Abigail! RUN!”

I could not; my legs would not lift me from the ground. To this day, I know not how those seconds played out exactly; I only remember
the feeling of strong, loving arms around me as Quinn dropped his burden and swept me up, carrying me as far away as he could before ignition.

The house, the laboratory, and Ruby Road Art and Antiquities, all gone forever in one brightest flash of red and orange, with a roar that none of us would ever forget.

Penn's sheer determination afforded him the strength to pull Schuyler to safety but not without great sacrifice. The noise of the explosion was damaging to all our ears, but for Penn's, with the power of the amplifiers, it would prove too much to recover from.