The Sixteen Burdens (24 page)

“Move it, dumb girl.”

Lulu had to climb over Fairbanks to get out of the way. Gray heard the
thunk-thunk-thunk
of Fairbanks’s feet as Sugar dragged him down the stairs.

Gray ran over to Elsie.

“Let’s go!”

Siegel sat up, dazed, and saw Gray trying to untie Elsie’s hands.

“Get them!”

Enzo bounded toward them. Elsie dragged Gray into a hallway.

“This way!”

She ran down the hall, into a dark bedroom. Gray slammed the door shut and locked it. Elsie ran to the window and yanked it up with her bound hands.

There was a crash from behind. Enzo had rammed the door and popped it out of the frame, easy as an ice cube popping out of a tray.

“Go!” Gray yelled.

Elsie climbed up and out onto the fire escape. Gray followed. She bent over to release the ladder. By then, Enzo was at the window, grabbing for them. He reached for Gray, who stomped on his hand. Enzo grabbed his foot and yanked. Gray fell backward, knocking into Elsie. With her hands tied, she was unable to grab onto anything. She slipped out from under the railing, off the edge.

Elsie fell.

“NO!”

Gray flipped over on his stomach and watched as Elsie fell four stories to the ground. She looked at him, and he at her. It seemed to take forever.

She plummeted toward two figures in the alley below—Panchito and Lulu. Panchito’s hands were outstretched; he was trying to thrust Elsie upward to slow her descent. She twisted violently in the air and Gray heard the thud of Elsie’s body hitting the pavement.

He turned to Enzo, whose face was aghast.

“You killed her,” Gray said.

He kicked Enzo in the face as hard as he could and jumped onto the ladder. Elsie had already released the safety, and he rode it down and crashed to the ground as it abruptly ended.

The wind got knocked out of him but he willed himself onto his hands and knees and crawled over to Elsie. Lulu and Panchito were already crouched over her.

“I tried to break her fall,” Panchito said. “I couldn’t stop her entirely. She was coming too fast.”

Elsie had landed on her back and it looked as if she had hit her head pretty hard. She was breathing very shallowly.

Gray knelt to pick her up.

“We shouldn’t move her,” Panchito said.

Gray scooped her up anyway, careful to support her head and back.

“We have to. Siegel and his goons will be down here any moment. We have to get her somewhere safe.”

Even as Gray said it, he knew they were short on options. Charlie’s mansion wasn’t safe anymore. A hospital wouldn’t be secure, not with Siegel’s reach. He looked at Panchito, who nodded.

“My grandmother won’t mind.”

They ran around front, Gray supporting Elsie’s head and shoulders, Panchito holding the rest. Lulu scouted ahead and flagged down the first taxi she saw. The driver cast a troubled glance at Elsie as they entered but only asked if they had the money to pay. Panchito, in the passenger seat, flashed him some bills. The man took off.

Elsie’s head rested in Gray’s lap; he cracked the window to give her air. Outside, the boulevard was coming to life; he heard the laughter and chatter of people unbothered by worry. They were part of an entirely different world, one separated by more than just a pane of glass.

“We need to leave town,” he finally said. “They have Fairbanks, and they have the Eye. If they team up and replicate their powers, they’re going to be unstoppable. And the first people they’ll come for is us, to copy your powers too.”

“We’re just going to give up?” Panchito asked.

“We don’t have a single bargaining chip left.”

“You’re wrong,” Lulu said.

She had been silent since Elsie’s fall. From her pocket she pulled out a chain, and at the end of it: Newton’s Eye.

“You pick-pocketed Mr. Fairbanks when Sugar ran into you,” Gray said. “How did you manage that?”

Lulu shrugged.

“Like I told you, I live with gangsters.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

D
ESPITE
HIMSELF
, D
ARKO
Atlas liked Douglas Fairbanks. It was impossible not to. He was likable even when he wasn’t talking. Even when his tongue was nailed to a pole. Which, incidentally, it was.

Fairbanks had failed to deliver the Eye and had even planned to betray them. With just a railroad spike and a tent pole, Atlas had shut Fairbanks up and made an interesting conversation piece for his living quarters.

Two of the dwarves escorted Pickford inside, her veil pinned securely over her head. She leaned heavily on them for support.

She’s lasted longer than I expected.

Talk about an enduring beauty.

Pickford let out a weak cry when she saw Fairbanks.

“Douglas!”

She pried herself free of the little men and ran toward him, but in her weakened state she stumbled to the ground. Fairbanks let loose a guttural cry and extended his hand out to her. She reached for him. Their fingers fell short by a good foot, offering all the melodrama of a Shakespearean tragedy.

“You two really were meant for the screen,” Atlas said.

“Why have you done this to him?” Pickford asked.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Atlas looked at Fairbanks. There was a pleading in his eyes. This would hurt him more than the spike in his tongue.

“Mr. Fairbanks was going to rescue you by turning over Newton’s Eye,” Atlas said, “as well as your son.”

Pickford’s hand slowly recoiled from Fairbanks.

“Lucky for you he botched the job.”

“Douglas, how could you?”

Fairbanks began to cry, every histrionic sob tugging harder on his tongue.

“Ma-wy,” he said. “Ma-wy.”

Sugar appeared with Deda in his wheelchair. She avoided eye contact with Atlas, still angry and ashamed that she had let the Eye slip through her hands. Atlas had not hit her, even though he had wanted to. He knew if he did it would take her head clear off her body, and she was too valuable to lose.

“He asked to see Mr. Fairbanks,” she said as she positioned the old man between their two captives.

“Fine,” Atlas said. “As long as he keeps quiet.”

Sugar left. Fairbanks looked longingly toward Pickford. A long strand of drool dripped from his mouth.

“You’d like to see her face, wouldn’t you?” Atlas asked.

Fairbanks took a few shaky breaths. Even Pickford, who had every right to despise the man, seemed to pity him.

“My, what a couple you two must have made. One controlling people with her looks, the other commanding people with his words. A true power couple. And a true waste of talent.”

Pickford wobbled up to standing. She looked like a newborn fawn still finding her footing.

“We entertained this country during its darkest hours,” she said. “During the Depression, while people despaired, we gave them hope. What have you done?”

Through the veil, Atlas could see the smug expression on Pickford’s face. He wanted to rub it off, but if he did he’d take the skin with it.

“While you’ve been amusing the world,” Atlas said, “I’ve been preparing to save it. The darkest hours are yet to come.”

Atlas removed a package of butcher paper. He unwrapped it to reveal a steak and mashed potatoes. The steak had been cut into tiny pieces. He pinched a piece with his fingers and pulled the veil up on Pickford’s head just enough to create space.

“Feeding time.”

She opened her mouth, and he stuck his fingers inside it.

He’d taken to force-feeding Pickford once she had become unresponsive. She had refused for the first three days, and tried to bite his finger off, which she discovered was futile after cracking a tooth. And so she ate compliantly, perhaps even gratefully.

Like a mother feeding a baby bird.

More like a farmer feeding a pig.

Fairbanks eyed the steak hungrily.

“Sorry, sir,” Atlas said. “We haven’t figured out a good way to feed you yet. Maybe some juice through a straw tomorrow morning.”

Fairbanks closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the pole.

“Mr. Atlas, get me in touch with Gray and I’ll tell him to bring the Eye,” Pickford said. “But only if you promise to let him go. You can keep both Douglas and me. You can kill us both for all I care.”

“It’s a romantic notion,” Atlas said, “But I’m afraid you have nothing to bargain with. We’ll find the boy one way or another, and he’ll have Newton’s Eye. Then we’ll have both.”

“Yes, you need both,” the old man confirmed. “The boy is key.”

The flap of the tent opened and Sugar stuck her head through. She was grinning widely, like some sort of dumb, love-struck schoolgirl. She rarely smiled as it was, and when she did, it looked nothing like that; it was repulsive.

“What’s wrong with you?” Atlas said.

“You have visitors,” she said.

Sugar walked in with Jack Siegel, who had his hand on her shoulder. Atlas recognized him from the society pages, which Siegel must have worked hard to get into. Behind them were two of his goons: a skinny, shifty looking one and a large one built of fat and muscle who might intimidate others, but was puny compared to Atlas.

Siegel bowed.

“I come to donate my services. And to offer a proposal.”

He let go of Sugar, whose smile sloughed off her like dead skin. She zipped over to the opposite side of the room, by Atlas.

“What services?” Atlas asked.

Siegel stepped forward and extended his arm.

“Shake my hand.”

“Don’t do it,” Sugar warned. “Let me kill them like I should have.”

Atlas ignored her. Whatever trick Siegel had up his sleeve, Atlas had one of his own. He almost hoped the gangster pulled a gun on him. Atlas took the man’s hand.

Terror shot through Atlas, like a bolt of black electricity branching through every cell in his body. He hadn’t felt fear this deeply since the day in Sarajevo—the one that had forever changed his life. In his mind, he was sucked back to that afternoon in 1914.

He hadn’t wanted to go to the parade, but his brother had insisted. Gavrilo knew of Darko’s exceptional strength, and he figured his younger brother may be useful at some point.

As in all things, Darko followed his older brother. When Gavrilo gave him Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche, he read them. When Gavrilo began attending secret meetings in the basements of Serbian radicals, Darko followed. And when the talk of a Bosnian revolution evolved into plots of murder, Darko kept the secret.

So on the day when the motorcade of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was driving through the streets of Sarajevo, Darko attended the parade with his brother. Maybe it was luck that the motorcade took a wrong turn down an alley right in front of the cafe where Gavrilo and Darko stood. Maybe it was destiny.

It was easy for young Darko to slide underneath the stopped carriage and grasp the axle so the wheels couldn’t turn. Darko held the carriage in place as his brother approached. He continued to hold it as Gavrilo removed a pistol and shot the Archduke and his wife at point-blank range. He even held it, frozen with terror, as police tackled Gavrilo to the ground and began to beat him senseless. Only after the royal bodies had been removed, and the rioting in the city had moved south, did Darko dare let go and run home.

A Great War had just begun.

Siegel let go of Atlas’s hand, and he snapped back to the present. Just as quickly as the fear had come, it evaporated. Atlas felt empty.

“How did you do that?” Atlas asked.

“I have a way with feelings,” Siegel said.

Somehow Atlas doubted that.

“The girl I told you about,” Sugar said to Atlas. “They captured her along with the Eye.”

So then it works.

“Did you hurt the girl?” the old man asked.

“The Dumb Dora jumped out of a four-story window,” Siegel said. “We don’t think she made it.”

Pickford gasped in shock. Even Fairbanks, to his credit, sighed in anguish.

“She’s still alive,” Deda said. The old man seemed certain about it.

“How did you discover her?” Atlas asked.

“She works for me,” Siegel said. “I thought she was one of a kind. Then I discover there’s a whole group of you, each with something special. And now I’m one of you.”

Atlas leaned back in his chair. It groaned.

“So those are your services. What is your proposal?”

“I’ll find that trinket for you,” Siegel said. “No one hides from me in Los Angeles for long. In exchange, you each give me your powers.”

Atlas barked a laugh.

“All of them? I think not.”

He stood up.

“Here’s my counter-proposal. You find me Gray Studebaker, and I’ll take it from there. Sugar will approach him and make him a great offer. He’ll meet, but he’ll be suspicious. He’ll bring his friends.”

“So?” Siegel asked.

“I want them all. Not just the Eye. The young man. His friend. The girl. The whole lot of them.”

Atlas looked at the old man, who nodded in agreement. Or was he just nodding off? It was difficult to tell.

“And what do we get in return?” Siegel asked.

“One talent,” Atlas said. “Each of you.”

Siegel thought only a moment about it.

“Fine. I’ll take Douglas Fairbanks’s magic words.”

“Very well,” Atlas said.

He looked at the muscular goon.

“And you?”

“I want your strength.”

Of course you do, you meathead.

You can be my first army recruit.

They all looked at the other goon, the skinny one who didn’t seem to be good for much of anything.

“What’s the old man do?” he asked.

“Health,” Atlas said. “You’ll live a long, long healthy life.”

“Yeah, I want that.”

From the folds of his cloak, Deda removed one of the vials of tonic he drank to stave off the aches and pains of old age.

“Be careful what you wish for,” the old man said. “An old body is a temperamental thing.”

He uncorked the vial and drank the pungent liquid, then erupted into a coughing fit.

“Longevity is little more than a gift-wrapped curse.”

The goon shrugged.

“I’ll take my chances.”

Atlas nodded and held his hand out for the men to leave. Siegel tipped his hat.

“You’ll hear from us shortly.”

The three walked out of the tent, but Siegel turned back and poked his head in.

“Just out of curiosity, that kid, Gray—what does he do?”

The old man, who was slumped in his seat, pushed himself upright.

“The young man doesn’t have a power so much as a purpose,” Deda said. “He has come to destroy us.”