Summer (3 page)

Lolo rustled through the drifts like an eager puppy, swinging his flashlight from side to side.

“He’s cool and all,” he said, aiming his beam at Barker’s heels. “But in a creepy creeper sort of way. I get the feels he’d cut me into little pieces if you asked him too, and he’d probably like it.”

“He would.” Summer was glad she’d remembered her gloves, all the way from Manhattan. It was almost as cold in D.C. as it was up north. She stuck her flashlight in one armpit and zipped her coat up as far as it would go. “He’s sworn to protect me. Sort of like another
geis
. I’m not sure he’d actually like dicing you up, but he’s good at it.” Then she whispered: “Remember, he’s terrified of the dark.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Lolo demanded. “Hold his hand?”

“
Children
.” Barker managed to pitch his voice so it slipped around the skeletal trees, a whisper, then rang loud in their skulls.
“Quiet!”

Summer muffled a snort of laughter when Lolo jumped.

“I can’t do that, either,” she said, then hurried to catch Barker.

The National Mall blazed with the light the rest of the District was lacking. Herds of generators crouched in groups, linked by masses of thick black cable, polluting the night with their rumbles and groans. The generators powered tall, grilled emergency lights, almost all of which shone down into the exposed Metro system.

Only, when Summer pressed against yellow police tape, standing high on the toes of her sneakers, she saw there wasn’t much of the Metro left under the Mall. Mostly the Mall was one gigantic crater, the Metro tunnels torn out of the earth by explosion, then smashed further into the ground by rogue bits of the fallen Washington Monument. Steam rose from the mix of soil and metal and torn pipes; it rolled back and forth like white fog beneath the lights.

“So much for waiting until after dark,” Lolo said. “Spotlights aren’t gonna keep the
sluagh
down in their hole.”

“I imagine the mortals have other monsters in mind.” Barker muted his flashlight. He regarded the crater, then the armed men and women in military fatigues surrounding it. “How did you get in?”

“Not this way,” Lolo scoffed. “And it’s not the Marines you should be worrying about. It’s the one’s like her.” Casually, he jerked an elbow sideways.

Summer tried to look without turning her head. A woman in a gray trench coat and battered ball cap stood not far away under one of the spotlights. She seemed to be moon-gazing. Then the woman swiveled, looking over the crater and directly at their small group. Summer felt a prickle of unease.

“What makes you think I was worrying about the Marines?” Barker retorted. “Show me how you got in.”

Lolo led them away from the crater. He whistled softly as he walked. Summer couldn’t place the tune. She trailed behind as they crunched over another expanse of frozen grass, past the Smithsonian Castle. The Castle was dark, but the glow of emergency lights cast spooky shadows over the brick facade, making her shiver.

She wondered what Barker thought of his new freedom. She’d been allowed to visit Winter once or twice since he’d been sent away and she’d always been excited at the chance to explore a different city. But Barker had gone straight from
Tir na Nog
to Manhattan, then lived centuries trapped on the island.

Summer was a little surprised he wasn’t running about in mad circles, trying to see everything new all at once. Maybe he thought one mortal city was the same as another. Maybe he didn’t feel well enough for enthusiasm or awe.

Maybe he was still mourning her papa.

She buried that thought quickly, squinting hard at Barker’s rigid shoulders until she was sure she wouldn’t cry.

Lolo turned right just past the Castle. They walked east past the Air and Space Museum. The damage from Richard’s bomb didn’t extend much beyond the Mall, except for the dust and a few lost chunks of concrete and metal.

“Win’s portal wasn’t exactly right under the Washington Monument,” Lolo explained. “But close enough. Richard must have set off his C4 as close to the
sluagh
hole as he could get. The Metrorail’s not as massive as the New York subway system, but it’s not small, either. And Richard’s tunnel is on the
other
side of L’Enfant Plaza.”

He gestured again, this time with his flashlight, as they passed the Metro at L’Enfant Plaza. The station escalator was cordoned off and under guard. Summer felt another unwelcome pang of grief. L’Enfant was Winter’s territory and now Richard’s stupidity had started mortals sniffing about.

“Federal Center’s actually closer to home,” Lolo continued. He hopped off the curb, still humming under his breath, then cut sideways across an old alley lined with leafless trees. “And it’s got another totally sweet perk.”

“What would that be?” Barker asked. The
sidhe
ghosted silently alongside Summer. He’d switched his light back on, muffling the blaze with a wad of his shirt hem, even though Summer knew he could see as well as a cat in the dark.

She tried not to feel sorry for him, in case he heard the sympathy in her head.

“Federal’s far enough away it’s local cops watching it,” explained Lolo. “And they
know
me.”

“How’s that a good thing?” Summer demanded.

Lolo only shrugged. “No funky fay Glamour required. Just the right words in the right ear.”

“Bran,” Summer guessed. “He taught you a secret police password, or something.”

Lolo made a rude noise.

“Bran’s a suit,” he said, as if Summer had suggested something dirty. “They’re not going to like you, though,” he told Barker. “’Specially the demon eyes.”

“They won’t notice me,” the
sidhe
replied. “Lead on.”

The two cops guarding Federal Center Station didn’t exactly smile when they saw Lolo, but they relaxed enough to make Summer think they recognized him as a friend. When the tiny policewoman bumped Lolo’s fist and then slapped him on the back, Summer wondered if maybe they were more like family.

“
Hola
,
como esta?”
The woman stood proud in her blues, but she was barely taller than Lolo, even in her chunky boots. “What’s happening,
mi hijo
? It’s not a good night to be out.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad,” Lolo replied. Summer noticed he kept Winter’s gun carefully hidden under his ratty denim coat. “We’ve got business inside, Mary-Beth.”

Mary-Beth’s bulky partner shifted, but didn’t say anything. Mary-Beth looked from Lolo to Summer. Some of the humor left her mouth.

“This weather, every squatter in the Triangle wants to sleep in the tunnels. We’ve just finished clearing them out, best we can. Why would we want to let you in?” She looked Summer up and down again. “You messing with Georgetown trouble, Lolo?”

“No,” Lolo answered quickly. “No drugs,
nada
, you know me better, Mar. Business inside is totally kosher, and it won’t take long. Camera’s still out?”

“Like the rest of the electricity.” Mary-Beth’s partner turned his head and spat on the cement, just missing the square of concrete Barker had occupied a few seconds earlier. Barker himself had vanished. “It’s not exactly safe in there, and I don’t mean the structure. Tunnels are wormy with vagrants, and hookers, and some that
are
looking for that Georgetown thrill. We can’t round ’em all up, they mouse back in so fast.”

Lolo nodded. “That’s why we’re here. Summer’s lost her brother. Word on the block’s he’s gone under looking for a high. We just wanna find him and take him home before his
padre
gets wind, or before he picks the wrong dealer.”

Summer felt Mary-Beth’s stare a third time. She scowled at the toes of her sneakers and tried to look worried. It wasn’t difficult. Her stomach knotted every time she thought of Winter.

He’s not gone
, she promised herself, but the toes of her shoes blurred.
He wouldn’t leave me.

Maybe the cops noticed the tears leaking down her nose.

“Okay,” Mary-Beth relented. “But you be careful. And stay away from the blast site. That
will
come down around your ears, you breathe wrong.”

“
Gracias
,” Lolo bumped the cop’s fist again. This time Summer saw the wad of money as it changed hands, a quick flick of green between fingers.

The other cop spat a second time as they slipped into the station’s dark and gaping mouth.

“That looked like a lot of cash,” Summer said once they were out of earshot.

“Not really.” Lolo pointed his flashlight into the depths. Summer saw the prickly slope of a stopped escalator and the impression of squares on the barrel-vaulted ceiling above. “I keep a few Benjamins around for emergencies. Mary-Beth’s got a sister in one of those shiny Connecticut coke hospitals. Her family could use the tax-free donation, no skin off my ass. Knew she’d fall for the lost brother story; Mar’s got a boner for happy-ever-after rehab stories.”

“Lovely.”
Barker detached himself from the shadows at the bottom of the motionless escalator.
“Your empathy is overwhelming.”

“Talk out loud.” Lolo clattered down the escalator. “Make noise. People down here, they don’t want to be found. Give ’em time to hide away: no trouble.”

Barker watched Lolo with unblinking yellow eyes, but stepped aside and let the boy take the lead. Summer wanted to run back up the escalator and into the night. She took a deep breath and followed Lolo. Barker walked silently at her back.

She’d been in the Metrorail tunnels before, of course. The very first time she’d thought of it as a game; Winter hiding beneath a mortal city, walking among the humans all unknown. He’d given her a tour of Richard’s money-train tunnel, served her Thai food in the makeshift kitchen.

He’d been all of ten. She’d been eight. And Winter hadn’t let her sleep overnight in the tunnels, not once the trains stopped running and the
sluagh
came hunting. No, come dark she’d been safely tucked away in a nearby hotel with Gabby to guard her dreams.

“Watch it,” Lolo cautioned. The beam from his flashlight arced back and forth across the station platform, picking out bits of trash and chunks of fallen rocks. “The third rail’s dead, but don’t go tripping over it.”

Summer stood at the edge of the platform. She looked down at the tracks. More trash and rocks, and in the white circle of her own shifting light: a dead rat.

“Gross. Seriously gross.”

“Iron,” Barker hissed, more interested in the tracks than road-kill. Summer knew it was a reflexive reaction. Most of the exiles were iron-immune. Centuries of living around mortals and mortal steel dulled the iron-sickness.

But Barker had recently been pierced through by a sword forged of consecrated  Church iron. Summer couldn’t blame him for holding a grudge.

“Chill.” Lolo bent at the knees, then dropped off the platform. He landed in the trench, one foot on either side of the closest rail. “You’re cool. Trains aren’t running.”

Barker seemed to float from platform to dirt. He held up a hand for Summer. She ignored it, hopping into the trench behind Lolo.

“Stinks,” she complained. “Like a toilet.”

“Pinch your nose and suck it up. Follow me. Don’t look to the side, even if they try to make you. Don’t engage.”

“What are you talking about? Engage who?” Summer stood on her toes and peered over Lolo’s shoulder.

Lolo lifted his arm, pointing his light straight ahead. The Federal Center Station platform ended ten feet ahead. Where the platform trench ended, the underground waited, a gaping tunnel mouth. Lolo’s flashlight turned the entrance gray, and illuminated a few more feet into the darkness.

“Them,” said Lolo, and Summer saw they weren’t alone.

Richard woke in stages.

The fingers in his left hand twinged first; useless, swollen appendages throbbing in time with his heartbeat. The painful itch of the Cold Fire burns on his thigh joined the angry chorus.

Grit and gravel and sand had abraded the seeping coldfire blisters when the Dread Host pinned him to the earth on the dark side of Winter’s portal. Richard had fought back and in the struggle managed to rip a few feathers from the
sluagh
Prince’s ebony wings.

Then the Prince ordered Richard’s hand broken as punishment.

“Human bones are fragile, just like human minds,” said the Prince, wormy white tongue flicking in contemplative circles as it directed two lesser
sluagh
to hold Richard down while a third smashed his hand with a chunk of rock. “I have need of your mind yet, but your bones will serve whole or in pieces. Touch us again without permission and you’ll soon be naught but a sack of jelly.”

Richard screamed when they held him prone on the beach. The air burned his throat and the sand stung his flesh. Where the lesser
sluagh
gripped his forearms, Richard’s jacket and shirt smoked away and frostbite fingerprints marked his skin.

Aine, standing motionless in a circle of wing and tooth and claw, watched Richard’s fingers snap and didn’t make a sound.

The hungry, hollow pit of Richard’s stomach woke next. They’d had nothing to eat for at least a day, maybe longer.

“There’s nothing grows on or near the Dark Waters safe to eat,” the Prince explained. Its voice, unlike the rest of it, was beautiful. “Mayhap, when we reach the catacombs, there will be something suitable.”

“We’ll die without food,” Richard argued. “Food and water.” He’d still had spirit, then. His spirit, and his fingers.

“You were willing enough to die only hours ago,” rebuked the Prince. It had raven wings, dark and glossy, and tall as a man. They moved gently when the
sluagh
inhaled and exhaled. “And this side of the Gate is no place to regain hope.”

“What about Aine?” Richard challenged. “She’ll die, too.”

The Prince clicked its teeth.

“The human
siofra
will need nourishment,” it acknowledged. The Prince pulled its wings close, for warmth or protection against the acrid air. “She’ll last until the catacombs.”

Richard’s eyes were sealed shut. Thick, dried crusts glued his lashes together.  He rubbed at his eyelids with his good hand, gritting his teeth to keep from groaning when the bones in his other hand shifted. He scrubbed until the crusts fell away and his eyes wept fresh tears, stung by the poisonous air.

He was afraid to open his eyes, but he did anyway. He’d been afraid for most of his life. Until Winter came along and showed him differently, he’d assumed everyone walked through life in a constant state of dread.

He’d fallen asleep on his side, but somehow he’d shifted without waking and now lay on his back. The
sluagh
dimension’s round white sun hung directly overhead, shedding a cold gray light. It was high in the sky, which meant half the day was already gone. That was one of the first things Richard noticed; the alien sun kept time with the still running pocket watch on his belt.

Which meant maybe it wasn’t an alien sun after all, but the very same Earth star seen through a different filter.

Richard’s pocket watch was failing—it was too difficult to wind the spring one-handed—but when he’d collapsed into a nest of gravel many hours earlier, the sun had been setting. He’d slept for far longer than he’d yet managed. Usually the Prince allowed his army only a short break.

Richard sat up carefully, cradling his left hand in his lap.

The
sluagh
Prince crouched only a few feet away. It sat on its heels, clawed hands resting on its knees. The
sluagh’s
wing feathers trailed in the gravel. It smiled at Richard, showing sharp teeth.

“The path ahead is blocked,” the Prince explained. “We must wait until it’s safe again before we move on.”

“Blocked?” Richard asked, but the Prince only stared and smiled.

“Water?” the monster offered, polite as a
maître d’
at any four-star restaurant.

Richard was almost overcome by a wave of hatred. He wanted to pummel the
sluagh
until the ghoul’s ugly face was nothing more than slime, until those knowing green eyes were jelly on his knuckles. Only the pulsing agony in his broken hand kept him from trying.

“Yes,” he said.

The Prince whistled, the sweet trill of a bird in spring. A smaller
sluagh
detached itself from the shadows of a boulder. Richard recognized the
sluagh
by its vacant, one-eyed stare. A warty growth of small tentacles undulated where its other eye should have been.

Richard had taken to mentally calling the one-eyed ghoul ‘Water-Bearer,’ because as far as he could tell its only purpose in the small army was to lug around a large leather jug full of drinkable water.

Water-Bearer bent at the knees in front of Richard. It unstoppered the jug and held it out so Richard could suck from the leather tit like a baby. The
sluagh
smelled of rotting flesh and moldy soil, and the water from its jug tasted metallic, but at least the water was cold and not poisonous.

Water-Bearer waited patiently while Richard drank, then resealed the jug and took it back into the shadows.

Bracing his injured hand, Richard inched backward until he could set his spine against a boulder for support. The rock was cold even through his clothes, but it was dry, which meant he didn’t have to worry. The
sluagh
had quickly put the poisonous lake at their back, marching away from the shore on a well-worn path. Even with the lake well behind, the air remained acrid until they passed into a rocky valley between low hills where the wind died down.

Now he could breathe the air without searing his mouth and lungs. His eyes still burned and wept, but some of the blur was clearing from his vision. He no longer felt like he was watching the alien landscape through a pair of foggy glasses.

The Prince rose, stretching its dark-angel wings. It lifted its chin, opening its mouth, fat tongue quivering between sharp teeth, tasting the air. It hissed, then leapt from the gravel and into the air.

The draft from the Prince’s wings smelled foul, but once in the air the monster was graceful, almost beautiful, a misshapen dancer between the white sun and dark hills. Richard couldn’t look away. He watched until the Prince disappeared, and he couldn’t pretend the lurch in his heart wasn’t more envy than fear.

Water-Bearer stirred. As Richard watched, it inched away from its solitary pool of shadow and approached the rest of the Host where they gathered in a knot against the sheltering hill, guarding the changeling. Richard could see only their dark forms, a wall of feathers and grotesquely twisted limbs, but he knew Aine was there among them, guarded by sharp teeth and wicked claws.

At first Richard assumed they were protecting her from the poisons in the air. Now he wondered if it was something more.

The group muddled, parting just enough to let Water-Bearer squeeze through. Richard rolled onto his knees, hoping to catch a glimpse of Aine, but the feathery gap closed again too quickly.

Once he’d eased back onto the gravel it occurred to Richard that he was being ignored. Whether out of curiosity or distrust, the Prince had been his guardian since they’d crossed through the portal. As far as Richard could tell, the rest of the Host had dismissed him in favor of the jewel that was Aine. And now the Prince was gone.

Go!
Richard’s conscious always sounded an awful lot like his father.
Get your ass up and go! Just like I taught you, Rick! Now!

He was up and away before he really thought about it, running through the ever-present twilight, dodging boulders and slipping on gravel, leaving the
sluagh
path behind. The resulting pain in his hand made his head spin, but he didn’t slow, even when his damaged leg began to drag.

Richard put the lake at his back and limped uphill. As he climbed out of the shelter of the valley, the wind picked up again, stinging. It sucked the air from his lungs and he was forced to slow to a jog, then a staggering walk.

He found a man-sized spear of granite and sank down against it, cradling his hand. The sun seemed brighter from the hillside, the cold light malevolent. He looked back the way he’d come, but saw no sign of pursuit. He could just make out the trail the
sluagh
had worn into the earth. A pale thread through the darker gravel, it ran parallel to the lake and toward the lowering sun.

West,
Richard decided. East was where Winter’s portal had spat them out, all in a rush, the heat of C4 following them through, singeing
sluagh
feathers and making Aine cry out in terror.

Richard shivered. The explosion had been bigger than he’d expected. Richard’s father was infamous for his immolation expertise—or had been until he’d blown both his legs off in one of his own traps. From Bobby, Richard had learned how to build and rewire; he’d repaired old clocks and old buildings, antique phones and rusting gas-lamps. Richard was a tinkerer. Bombs were no more difficult than clockwork.

Something went wrong
, Richard thought, recalling the roaring flame and the seismic blast.
It was only supposed to be enough to collapse the Way.

“Forty thousand tons of stone, Richard. That comes down, there will be real damage,” Bran had warned, right before the timer on the ignition clicked down to zero, triggering the accelerant, blowing the tunnel.

“Sorry,” Richard whispered to the alien sun. “I’m sorry, Bran.”

He used the side of the granite spear to lever himself back upright, even though his legs and eyes ached. His broken hand sent tiny zaps of nauseating pain straight to his stomach. He missed his cane—a cane that had once belonged to Oscar Wilde—and wondered if it had survived the explosion. Last he’d seen it, Aine had been using the long ebony stick as a weapon against the invading Host.

Aine, who’d gone faded and dull since she’d surrendered to the
sluagh
. The few times Richard had gotten close enough to whisper a word, she’d been unresponsive. He wondered if she hated him. She’d sacrificed herself, and all for nothing.

It didn’t matter. He’d find a way to rescue her from the Host, just as soon as he recovered some of his strength, and got a good look at the environment, and figured out what sort of materials he had to work with. He’d come up with a clever plan, because he always did, even if a clever plan meant nothing more than tossing chunks of rock at the Prince and its minions. And because he’d promised Aine, in a whisper, that he’d save them both.

Then he’d gone and run off like a coward and a fool.

“Recon,” Richard reminded himself. “Recon is good. Always start with recon.”

He’d run, but not far. He’d just circle back down the hill, follow the army at a safe distance and wait until an opportunity solidified.

He started back the way he’d come, jogging slowly. He couldn’t help but wish for Winter and one of the
sidhe
’s pain-blocking Cants, or for Gabby and her magic healing ointment.

It was a lucky thing Richard was moving carefully, because if he’d gone back to barreling about in fear and distress, he’d never have noticed Water-Bearer in time. As it was, he barely had a moment to step out of the
sluagh
’s half-flying, half-shuffling trajectory, and freeze.

You can’t see me
, Richard thought, motionless.
I’m not here. You can’t see me.

It was the tiny prayer he’d held close to his heart since Bobby had first tried to break him, when Richard was five. It was every broken child’s useless mantra, but for Richard, it always worked.

Water-Bearer loped past Richard, unseeing, exactly as they all did, because Richard refused to be found.

I’m not here. You can’t see me.

Bobby, and Bobby’s goons. Elementary school teachers. Social workers. The retail clerks on the District streets and grocery store baggers. Tourists, street police, museum guards, fish-eyed cameras, traffic cops. If Richard didn’t want to be noticed, no one paid him any attention.

The only person Richard couldn’t fool was Winter, and that was because of the
sidhe
’s wicked sense of—

“Smell,” said Water-Bearer, just as Richard remembered. His heart jumped into his throat. “I can smell you, Adam’s son. I know you’re near, I can smell your blood and bones and sweet, sweet flesh.”

The monster stopped ten feet up the hill. It turned, wings partially spread, and peered back down in Richard’s direction. Its head swiveled, seeking blindly, single eye narrowed, no longer vacant. Then it snuffled, scenting its prey.

“Brave, but naive.” It had the Prince’s alto tones. “You won’t last long without water, mortal. And there’s none safe to drink outside the catacombs.” It grimaced, tongue flicking. “Only what we carry.”