Throne (21 page)

But more. It was like moving through honey, the air thick, inimical, poisonous. Looks directed their way were sullen, grudging, rich with dislike. Laughter was raucous, the blare of horns more malicious, the endless flow of traffic seeming to press against them, elbows and shoulders catching them as they sought to move through it. As if a tide was turning against them, a general sense of opprobrium and resentment. Eyes followed them, faces closed, shut, glowering. Their presence causing resentment.

Maya tried to block it out. She’d faced resentment before, discrimination, for being young, being a girl, but not as much as she had expected, here in New York City. But this was more than a question of skin or sex; this was a resentment of her very being, in some profound and personal way she couldn’t understand. Kevin was feeling it too; looking over at him she saw that he was walking with his chin ducked, his shoulders hunched, as if into a strong headwind.

They were curling into a spiral. Guillaume, moving quickly, took a left turn at the following street, and then paused, turning to look back at them. “The trail is weak,” he said, his voice breathless. “I’m having trouble picking up the scent. But we’re close, I think.” He looked up into Maya’s eyes, searching them. “Close.”

Maya nodded. She felt frightened, almost cowed, and this realization caused something to straighten within her. Reaching up, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and twisted a rubber band off her wrist to tie it back. Tucked some strands behind her ears, and pushed her shoulders back.

“Slow down,” she said to Guillaume, who was turning to continue. “Walk. Never run.” Anger burned in her, but something more; a dignity she had learned from her mother, as they walked hand in hand down the streets. A dignity that she had observed each morning as a child when her father would rise to dress and comb his hair and put on his tie, meticulous and precise though nobody expected him to wear a suit. A worn suit, threadbare, but one he wore with pride. Ignoring snubs, snide remarks, insults. Rising, as he always said, above it.

Guillaume stared at her, and then nodded. Turned, and sauntered forward. Kevin grinned at her, and then ran ahead. Sprinted past the fox, slipping through the crowd, and then, before she could cry out, darted into a liquor store to his left. By the time she had reached the store’s front door, he emerged, a paper bag in his hand. He raised it, drank a good four gulps, and then wiped his lips on the back of his hand, letting out a sigh of relief.

“Liquid courage,” he said, falling in step with her. “Never fails. Want some?”

“I don’t like alcohol,” she said stiffly. He snorted, shoved her shoulder as if she’d told a good joke. Paused, stared at her.

“For reals?” he asked, “You really don’t drink?”

“Well, not often,” she said, remembering Paula and the Blue Note, so many lifetimes ago. Kevin laughed, and held out the bottle out to her. Shaking her head, she shoved his arm away. He only laughed again.

Guillaume paused, uncertain. Hesitated, turned left. Something within her reacted, and she stopped. “No,” she said. Her voice rang with new authority. “Not that way. This way.”

Turning right, she crossed the street, running quickly before the onslaught of yellow cabs and luxury cars that were racing their way, unleashed by the green light a block away. Gained the far side, paused, trying to figure out from which direction that feeling had come. Something had called to her, tugged her in this direction. Moving forward, she saw boarded up windows along the brick wall to her right, a whole row of them, nailed closed and abandoned. But before one of them, a flower box. Held in place by thick, corrugated iron bands, rusted past crimson almost to black, peeling curlicues of paint. And in the flowerbox, a profusion of growth, green stems unleashing a palette of demonic reds, viridian greens, azures and swirls of sunlit yellows. Tulips, she thought, but no, something more, like the essence of them, thick as if painted fresh on a Van Gogh painting. She imagined squeezing one in her fist, causing thick and vibrant paint to ooze out between the cracks of her hand.

“Look at that,” said Kevin, stepping up next to her. He didn’t have anything to add. They stood shoulder by shoulder, staring at the impossible flowers. They were so vividly colored, so bright and vivacious that they jarred with the night air, the penumbral gloom. Throbbed and breathed, alive in a way no plant could be.

“We’re close,” breathed Guillaume, as if afraid of frightening away that which they were proximal to by speaking too loudly. “We’re very close.”

“Close to me,” grunted a voice, broad and deep and stupidly happy. Maya and Kevin looked up, away from the flowers, and saw Tommy Rawhead walking toward them, razor in hand.

“Oh give me a fuckin’ break,” said Kevin. “You serious?”

Maya grabbed Kevin by the arm. There were no owls this time. She didn’t want to run. Enough with running. She had no idea what they would do, but this time, they would not flee. Tommy approached, walking past an alley mouth toward them, a strand of drool hanging from his lower lip. Delight and pleasure were in his eyes, and he kept making sudden little darts with his step, trying to spook them into running.

“Ok,” said Kevin. “I’m going to fuck his shit up. Give me something to hit him with.”

A vast club arced down from the darkness above. Great and heavy, wickedly knotted. It hit Tommy directly across the shoulders and the back of his neck. Came down with such unearthly strength and savagery that Tommy was dead before it could crush past his shoulders and clavicles, bury itself deep into his ribcage, send him slamming down to his knees.

Everything seemed to slow down, stop. The club lifted back up, raising Tommy momentarily as he stuck to it, to its spikes. Then gravity claimed its own, and pulled the dead man down, sucking him free so that he fell bonelessly to the pavement.

“Run,” whispered Guillaume.

Something stepped out of the alley, shoulders so broad they brushed both walls of the second floor. A man—no, a giant—his ponderous form draped in chains, each link as large as Maya’s hand. Four times taller than Kevin whose head but barely cleared the giant’s knees. Its great feet were wrapped in oiled rags, a massive, torn shirt, belted at the waist, served as an overlarge tunic, reaching in tatters down its thighs. A belt of chains, from which severed heads hung, the severed heads of men, men whose faces were yet animated, their mouths moving, screaming silently, their eyes pleading with Maya.

That was when she realized this was no rescue. That this was no figure come to save them from Rawhead. That it was possible for things to get much, much worse. Lumbering out into the street, ignored by traffic and the people striding by, the giant loomed over them. Its head, so high above, was a halo of thick, unkempt hair, its beard falling down to is belt, growing high up its cheeks, its brows overlarge, hiding the dark eyes in shadow. Hideous, mute, it raised the club to its shoulder, one handed.

“Jack in Irons,” whispered Guillaume, “
Run
.” And then he was gone, a flash of his white tipped tail, and the club came down where he had stood, so fast it blurred, and the pavement buckled, shattered into a crater where he had been. So fast, Maya realized, that she would have had no chance to jump aside. Would simply have died.

A hand grasped hers. Yanked her arm nearly out of its socket, and then they were sprinting. Right at the giant. The flowers left behind, a streak of color in the dark, the club rising into the air, still dripping blood. Kevin hurdled over Tommy’s body, leaned down as he ran to snatch something up, and then pulled Maya right between the giant’s muscled legs. Each as broad and thick as a tree. The stench was awful, rank rotting meat, ancient sweat, something sour and sweet and worse—but then they were through. Jack in Irons turning, surprised, perhaps, the club thrown from one great hand to the other, and then whistling down once more.

Kevin shoved Maya, shoved her hard enough to send her staggering and falling to her right, down hard on both knees. Tearing the skin off of them, burying grit into the palms of her hand. With a cry she looked up, hair in her face, and saw that the club had once more broken a fell crater into the concrete slab of the pavement. Already it was lifting, Jack in Irons turning to face them completely. Kevin—she couldn’t see him, and then there he was, rising slowly to his feet, his left arm slumped by his side, the angle of his shoulder all wrong.

“Kevin!” she screamed, and pushed herself to her feet. He turned to stare at her, his face stupid with shock, and then he gestured that she should go, and turned back to face the giant. He had no chance of stopping Jack. None. For a moment Maya stood, eyes wide, staring at his narrow back, how he was somehow raising his chin, pushing his shoulders back, standing proud and defiant before the giant. Prepared to give his life for her. That awful club rose higher in the air, and she saw Kevin flex his knees, ready to leap aside at the last moment.

He wasn’t going to make it.
Run
, a small, selfish voice in the depths of her mind whispered, the survivor voice that had kept her going these past years, that had moved her beyond injury and insult, that had made her work when she wanted to drop, that had kept her head above these turbulent waters. Run. It was good advice, and maybe the old Maya might have taken it. Instead, she darted forward, grabbed him by his belt, and yanked him back, causing him to stumble and almost fall.

With a crash, the club came down, shattering concrete yet again, and they both nearly fell. Kevin whipped around, getting ready to scream at her, but she shook her head. “We go together,” she yelled, grabbing him by the shirt and tugging at him. “Come on!”

His shoulder looked broken. His face was pale, gleaming with sweat, but he was grinning at her, a smile wide enough to split his face. He had to be terrified to smile so broadly. Jack in Irons took a large step toward them, but they ran stumbling to the street corner, turned it, and staggered to a stop.

The avenue was deserted. Not a single car drove up or down its length, not a bus or cab was in sight. A long, empty canyon of asphalt and desolate traffic lights, blinking their patterns of green, yellow and crimson to nobody. Nobody on the sidewalks. Nobody manning the kiosk across the avenue from them, nobody in the stores or shops. Endless banks of empty windows lining the front of each building. And with that absence, an absence of all sound but the wind, which came moaning and twisting down the broad street, playing in the desolation.

Kevin and Maya stood stock still, staring. The change was so sudden, so unexpected, that they simply gaped. Turned, stared behind them, and then, unable to resist, took a few steps back and looked down the street from which they had just come. Similarly empty. The entire city. All of Manhattan. Devoid of life, of people, cars, bicycles, pigeons, movement, everything.

“I think I’m hallucinating again,” said Kevin, holding his limp arm with one hand. Maya turned to him, shook her head.

“Unless we both are. How—how is your arm?”

He grinned at her, lips pulling back from his teeth. “All right. Never liked that arm much anyways.”

“Is it broken?” She wished she knew what to do. Splint it? Make a sling?

“Nah, just dislocated, I think. Hurts like a bitch though.”

“Can you… pop it back in?”

“Well, if you help me. I might cry though. I’ll probably cry. All right, fuck. Here. I’ll sit down,” he said, putting his back against the building’s wall, and sliding down to a sitting position, “And now you take my hand. Careful. Okay. Okay. When I say go, put your foot on my chest and just pull that fucker as hard as you can. Okay?”

Maya gingerly took his hand. His nails were chewed to the quick. She held it with both of hers, and placed her left foot against his chest. She felt nauseous. He took a few fast, deep breaths, and then looked about. “Fuck.”

“What?” she asked.

“My drink. I left it with Jack in Irons.”

“Oh come on already,” she said, exasperated, “Can we just get this done?”

“Fine. One. Two. Three.
Go
.” Maya leaned back, pulled as hard as she could. Kevin let out a mangled scream, eyes flaring wide, going blank for a second. Foot pressed hard against his chest, heel digging into his ribs, Maya put her hips into it and hauled back. Something twisted wetly through his arm, and then Kevin was yelling at her and she let go and staggered back.

“Are you better? Did it work?”

Kevin keeled over, pressed his head to the concrete, holding his hurt arm against his chest. “Better? Better? You kidding me? Maybe after a bottle of tequila and a couple of prostitutes, but right now? Ah,
fuck
.”

“Sorry,” said Maya, hovering. “Thanks, by the way. For shoving me.”

Kevin took a deep breath, breathed out through his nose, sat up. “No problem. Bill’s in the mail. Here, help me up.” He extended his good arm. She grabbed his hand, hauled him up.

“Ah,” he said again, wincing. “All right. It’ll be fine. Had worse. I think. Now, where are we?”

“This must be it,” said Maya, looking around. “The House of Asterion.”

“It’s just an empty Manhattan,” said Kevin. “Nobody here. Nobody to… guard the stores. Or the banks. Or the liquor shops.” He suddenly brightened. “Hey, this could be good.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “Look, we’re not here to rob the place. We have to find Asterion. We have to find this sword before that woman does. Clear?”

“Sure, sure,” said Kevin, looking about speculatively. “But you don’t know where he is, do you?”

“Asterion? No… not as such.”

“So it’s possible—technically possible—that he could be in the back of that Prada store. Right? Technically speaking. Or in that First Nations Bank over there. Right?”

Maya stared at him.

“I’m just saying,” he said. “Just saying. He
could
be. You don’t know. And there’s only one way to find out. Right?”

“Wrong,” she said. “Somehow I don’t think he’s going to be hanging out in a clothing store. Or counting dollar bills.” She paused. How could she really know? Kevin watched her face hopefully. “Look, if you want to go in there, fine. I’m going to walk around some first. Do what you want.”