Vanished (18 page)

I had no idea what the distance was—my maps didn’t seem quite to scale sometimes, though I knew they must be. The twists and turns of London’s thoroughfares and byways made every street seem longer and farther from the previous one. I ground my teeth impatiently while waiting for the train and then standing in the crush.

I shoved my way out of the train on arrival and dashed up the stairs heedless of others and raising a commotion in my wake. I didn’t care. I ran on, two long blocks down Coventry to Whitcomb and south on Whitcomb. . . .

I was nearly all the way to Pall Mall, almost to Trafalgar Square after all, before I spotted the number I wanted and had to turn sharply, cutting across the street, dancing between cars and trucks as irate drivers honked at me, to dive into a gated courtyard on the other side.

The fact that it was commuter hour and I was wearing business clothes worked in my favor; a man in a business suit was just unlocking the gate as I dodged up, panting, “Lost my key.”

He held the gate, smiling. “S’all right. I’m on my third—flatmates keep takin’ ’em.”

“Thank you,” I said, catching my breath. Now I just had to shake him while I looked for Will’s flat. “I just can’t seem to keep track of things,” I added with an inane giggle.

His smile got a little cooler. “Ah. You’re American.”

I nodded.

“I suppose you know the fellas up on the second floor, then?” he asked, looking a little hopeful, but of what I wasn’t sure. Conversation? A date? Maybe it was just his natural expression, but I really didn’t want him to take too much interest in me, since I was sneaking in. “They seem quite nice.”

“You mean Will and Mikey? Oh, yeah. They’re sweet! It’s so nice to hear a voice from home, y’know?” I scratched my nose, then inspected my nails. “Eww! I can’t believe how dirty I get here!” There’s nothing like offhand insults and bad personal hygiene to make someone wish they’d never seen you. Cary used to say the easiest way to get someone to stop looking at you was to pick your nose in public. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go that far.

The man coughed and picked up his briefcase before turning away. “Umm . . . yes. Gets a bit filthy during tourist season . . .”

Left on my own just inside the gate, I only needed to get up to the second floor to reach the Novaks’ flat. I’d gone up one flight and along the corridor for a few feet before I remembered that the British start numbering above the ground floor. What I thought of as the second floor, they called the first. I hurried back to the stairs and up another flight. Then down the hall to number twenty-two.

There was no bell, so I pounded on the door.

The building was old but recently renovated, and the doors were thick so I didn’t hear anything until the sound of the locks scraping back.

Michael Novak, shaggy flaxen hair hanging in his eyes, opened the door, saying, “Jeez, Will, can’t you just use the key?” He stopped and stared at me. “Umm . . . Hi. Harper.”

I knew I was mussed and out of breath but the awkward effect of my phone call from LA apparently lingered, as he tucked himself back behind the door and peeked out through a narrow opening.

“Will’s not here.”

“I got that, Michael. Do you know where he is? He hasn’t been at Sotheby’s for days.” I believed Sekhmet and I’d look a fool if she’d deceived me, but I’d take the chance.

“What? No. He goes to work every day, even part-time on Saturdays.”

“Not recently. I think he’s in trouble. Please let me in.” I held out my empty hands. “I don’t mean either of you any harm. I’m just worried about Will.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“Oh, come on, Michael! Call Sotheby’s and ask! If I wanted to hurt him, don’t you think I’d be the one who took him?”

“Will isn’t gone! He’s—Hey! There he is!”

I didn’t look immediately but shoved my foot into the open doorway and turned my shoulder into the opening as I glanced back down the hall. But Michael didn’t try to shove the door closed; he pulled it farther open and I found myself inside the flat, looking back out at Will Novak.

Tall, thin Will with his prematurely silver hair and small rimless glasses blinked at me. Then he smiled.

“Harper.” Something funny about his voice . . .

I narrowed my eyes and stared at him as he stepped into the flat.

A large dark blot wrapped in bands of energy—blue, yellow, red, and green—moved where Will should have been. It moved toward the kitchen. Michael and I followed him.

“Will,” Michael said. “What’s going on? Harper says you haven’t been going to work.”

“OK,” Will said.

“No, not OK,” Michael objected, going through the kitchen doorway after Will—if it was Will.

“Michael, I don’t think that’s Will,” I warned him.

He scowled at me over his shoulder and turned his back.

A sandwich sat on the counter by the sink, resting on a paper towel with the knife and makings piled beside it. Will trailed a hand along the counter edge, knocking the knife onto the floor. He walked past it.

“Will? Hello?” Michael said. “What’s with you lately? Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

I went into the kitchen right behind Michael, stooping to pick up the knife.

Will stopped and turned sharply around. “Harper,” he said again, but the voice was worse than before. Not angry or upset, but just wrong, like the chorus of the city’s Grey energy was funneling through his mouth. His eyes gleamed, both in the normal and the Grey, with a red glitter. He reached out and grabbed my arm—I was getting damned tired of that—and yanked me toward him, knocking Michael aside.

“Will!” Michael shouted, dismayed at his brother’s violence. “What—?”

“It’s not Will!” I shouted back as the thing occupying Will’s shape dug its fingers into my arm. It opened its mouth and let out a shriek of red and black light that struck at me like a cobra.

I slammed my other fist into the Will-thing’s chest, cutting off the magical scream and nicking its flesh with the knife. The thing rocked backward. Then it raised its other hand, clawed, toward my eyes, grimacing.

From behind us Michael yelled, “You’re crazy! Get away from him!” He lurched forward, grabbing me around the waist and hauling backward.

I dug in my heels, reversing the kitchen knife with a flip and driving it into the hand descending toward my face. The blade cut into the flesh with a damp shushing sound. The hand kept coming. I pushed on the knife and twisted. Then I yanked sideways, cutting through the fingers of its right hand. They pattered to the floor and lay twitching there as I wrenched my other arm free.

“No!” Michael screamed, jerking me back.

We fell down in a pile between the sink and the serving island. The thing that wasn’t William Novak came forward, flailing and silent, with its mouth gaping. Light in ugly colors started to pour out of its mouth, flowing toward me and Michael.

I shoved Michael backward along the slick floor and scrabbled back myself, shouting, “It’s not Will! Run, Michael!”

Michael lay where I’d pushed him, staring in horror at the un-bleeding, mutilated hand. A hand made of something dark and solid and definitely not human flesh.

Stuck between Michael and the not-Will thing, I took another swipe with the knife at the creature. It ignored the blade once again, stabbing a handful of light at me that jammed into my shoulder. I jumped back, right into Michael as he struggled to his feet, clutching the counter for support.

I stumbled and ducked, using the maneuver to scoop my purse up from the floor where it had fallen. Then I swung around fast and smacked the heavy leather bag into the creature’s face.

It stumbled back a step.

I grabbed Michael’s shoulder and hauled him all the way to his feet. “Get the hell out of here!”

Dazed, he lumbered out of the kitchen as I turned back to the monstrous thing, which was now coming forward again. My shoulder burned and I dug my fingers into the ache, not taking my eyes off the not-Will, and hooked my fingers into the energy that had lodged there like a broken blade. I yanked it out and felt it ravel away. Then the thing lurched at me.

I slashed the knife at the first thing that came toward me and saw one forearm fall away. But that didn’t slow it any more than losing the fingers had. It wasn’t losing blood, just substance, and it didn’t seem to care. The arm on the floor writhed, though the chopped fingers had stopped wriggling and were turning a chalky brick red color.

It was some kind of golem—like the thing I’d seen in White Horse Alley but full-sized—and it would keep on coming for me so long as it held together. So I’d have to take it apart and hope the smaller pieces would die off faster. I chopped at the other arm, at the neck and face. Bits fell away. I jammed the knife into its chest and ripped a hollow in the unreal flesh. Something fluttered to the ground. I stooped and swung at the legs, taking a chunk out near one knee as I scooped up the fallen object.

The thing lurched sideways and kept coming. But it was slower. I rose, threw the knife into the wreck of its face, and whirled to bolt.

Right into Michael’s chest as he stared from the hallway. I grabbed his arm and propelled him around. “Run, damn it!”

“It’s—it’s . . . it’s not bleeding!”

“Damn right it isn’t! It’s a golem. It doesn’t bleed! It just keeps coming until it falls down! Go!” I added, shoving him forward.

He stumbled and began running down the corridor to the stairs. I was right behind him, stuffing the stiff bit of paper I’d snatched from the kitchen floor into my pocket.

We raced down the two flights to the ground floor and burst out into the courtyard. I heard someone scream behind us and looked back to see the shambling horror that had counterfeited Will Novak pursuing us as one of the neighbors stared after it.

“It’s still coming!” Michael gasped.

“And we’re still running!”

But the golem wasn’t the only problem.

As we dashed out onto the street, hot columns of red energy erupted along the street and the ghosts of London turned to look at us. Then they screamed.

I remembered that whatever the golem saw, the man at the other end saw, too. And that man was Will. . . . If he were under duress he’d tell whoever had him exactly what he saw. So whoever controlled the golem knew where we were right now. I forced my mind into escape mode: We’d gotten out of the flat, but we still had to lose the backup crew. Or I had to. They could have had Michael anytime, so it wasn’t him they wanted—but I wasn’t going to abandon Will’s brother to whatever force was chasing us, and not just because dumping Michael would give them another lever to use against me. I liked Michael and I wanted both Novak brothers safe.

As we ran down the road toward the teeming bustle of Trafalgar Square, spikes of vampiric color darted from the buildings nearby and sped toward us: cat’s-paws and demi-vampires—the daylight assistants and slaves to things like Edward. And they were coming after us.

“Who are those guys?” Michael panted.

“Villains,” I shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. I kept more than half my sight tuned to the Grey, looking for holes in their net and bolting through them, twisting through their perimeter. I hauled Michael along, not sure which way to turn as I saw another group of red flares go up among the crowds below Nelson’s Column, between the fountains in the open plaza of Trafalgar Square.

I spat a curse.

“What?”

“More. In the square, around the fountains,” I panted.

“How do you know?”

“I just do!”

“C’mon,” he yelled, jerking me sideways.

We paralleled the square and dodged through a tribe of red buses, bumping through tourists to cross the next street, jinking into a wide alley and across another open courtyard. Steps. We leapt down them and flew across another wide avenue with a huge building—a col umned horseshoe of white marble—on our left and another open space ahead.

“Where are we going?” I shouted.

“Horse Guards. St. James’s Park.”

“Parks aren’t good! Too open!”

“Crowds, museums on the other side. Westminster Abbey, the Tube, the bridges, lots of ways out . . .”

I followed Michael’s lead and we sprinted down into Horse Guards Parade, an open, paved area between the road and another big white building on the left with some kind of soldiers’ memorial and the ponds of St. James’s Park on the right.

A large group of ghostly horsemen cantered along the road in an orderly square while a milling crowd of tourists wandered obliviously around the green. We cut across the park, through the thick stands of trees along the southern edge. Our pursuers were falling behind. But the ghosts among the trees turned to follow us with their eyes, and those that had any will at all screamed as we passed. The vampire minions shifted to follow the sound.