Judgment (44 page)

“Get your hands off me,” she snarled.
 

Charlie looked back the way Jeanine had come. “What’s chasing you?”
 

His hands were still too close. She slapped them away in a flurry of wild movements, knowing how ridiculous and unreasonable she must seem. She climbed upright, suddenly aware of how drained she was, unwilling to grip a chair for support. Charlie did the same. He stood patiently, awaiting an answer, as if the world weren’t ending.

“Nothing’s chasing me.” A heavy breath. “I was chasing Peers.”
 

“Why?”
 

“Where is Cameron?” she countered.
 

Charlie’s face made a strange expression. It took seconds before Jeanine recognized the emotion as discomfort. She’d never seen Charlie uncomfortable. It took social awareness to be uncomfortable, or emotion in general. Charlie had always been light on both.
 

“He’s gone.”
 

“He ran off? Did he open the Ark first?”
 

“He opened it.” A long sigh from Charlie. “Then he stood there for a long time, just looking at it. And then he jumped inside.”

“What?”
 

Charlie’s expression firmed. “He did what he needed to, okay? I can … ” He stopped, seeming to grapple with another moment of discomfort. “I can
feel
that it’s what he needed to do. So now it’s our turn.”

“To do what?”

“Get Clara back. Get out of here.”
 

“What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

“I have no idea what you’ve been trying to do. Where is Piper? Where is Lila?”
 

“I don’t know! Why should I know?”
 

“Perfect. Just perfect. We all head out to do a job, and you just stay back here playing tag.”
 

Jeanine could tell Charlie was at his wit’s end. He wasn’t showing it, but the man was panicking, mourning, terrified, furious. It came out as stoic arrogance, like he alone knew things in the middle of a forest of idiots. Like Charlie always did because he was so damn superior. So Jeanine did what her own worn-thin impulses demanded she do by hauling back and punching him hard in the face.

He staggered, almost fell, and looked up, nose bleeding.
 

“Well, that’s nice.”
 

“I’ve got nothing better to do, Charlie. You have ideas? Let’s hear them. But if you say one goddamned thing I think sounds too superior, I swear I’ll—”

“Do you know what’s happening out there? It’s not just people looting because the State of the City made them a little short. The mothership is moving closer. It dropped about thirty shuttles while I watched, and they all flew over here and started making a mess. They didn’t cut the broadcast, Jeanine. Do you understand what that means? They don’t particularly care if the capitals all fall apart because they’re about to be swept under the rug anyway. What happened the last time we saw a mothership move into place over a city? Do you remember?”
 

“Stop treating me like an idiot, Charlie. If this is armageddon, I don’t mind going out beating that look off your face.”

“Smart. Very smart. Don’t look for a solution. Don’t try to find the others so we can get out. Just use your fists. Is that how this goes?”
 

“I
am
looking for a solution. If you’d just listen for a second instead of mouthing off, I could—”

Jeanine stopped when a dark, low purring sound split the air.
 

Followed by a dozen or more.
 

Reptars at every entrance, moving in from the outer walls. More spilled from behind, stalking forward like giant insects.
 

“Shit,” Jeanine said.
 

Charlie raised his hands. “We’re with the viceroy. We’re with Mara Jabari.”
 

“I don’t think they care.”
 

The Reptars circled. Moved closer.
 

She didn’t have a weapon. There were too many to even attempt a fight. Every exit was blocked.
 

So she looked down at her chest. She unbuttoned her shirt.
 

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked.
 

“I’m sorry I hit you, Charlie.”
 

“Why …
what?”
He was staring at her exposed bra, distracted even from the presence of the Reptars, now only ten feet away.
 

She pushed aside a flap of fabric between her breasts. Charlie’s eyes widened at the sight of the tiny grenade and its dangling pull-string.
 

“Go ahead,” Jeanine said. “I’m sure you’ve never touched tits before anyway.”

The Reptars purred.
 

Charlie looked at Jeanine’s face then at the little black cylinder with its short, dangling cord. Then he met her big brown eyes again, and she nodded grimly.

Charlie reached.
 

He pulled the cord.
 

Peers felt the whiff of air as Jeanine jumped for his foot and missed, falling to the ground in a loud mess. She’d been shouting at him about catching Ravi, but the kid was no longer the problem. He’d lost him a few turns back. Now Peers had a different destination in mind, and a single, troubling refrain kept knocking around inside his head as his feet pumped, knowing he’d have to hurry if he meant to beat the furiously ticking clock.

The Fool.
 

Peers knew all about the Seven. They had the same basic significance for Peers and his friends, back when he’d been part of the clan, as Saint Nicholas had for the kids he met after moving to London. Tales were told about all of the old legends, the ancient scrolls, the aura of prophecies. But the Seven, much like Santa, weren’t folks anyone ever expected to meet. At a certain point, they became myth. Until Astral Day came, and Peers — much as Cameron Bannister must have done, for different reasons — realized that all he’d been taught was actually true. With his eyes open, the pieces all fit. The elders hadn’t lost the thread of truth over time; the old stories fit the unfolding invasion shockingly well, nothing lost through telling and retelling of those legends. It was almost as if the elders
did
have an ongoing line to the Horsemen. As if the legends weren’t from a disconnected past, but as the inevitable consequence of a long, contiguous present.

Which, of course, made sense. Outside the Mullah elders, Peers might know that better than anyone.
 

They’d all studied the scrolls like other kids study multiplication tables. Some were for elder eyes only, but there were things even the children should know. Legends made it into their bedtime stories and colored their world. And now Peers was beginning to see it. Like the coming of the ships, the emergence of the Seven would be a real thing, too.

There was the King. In the stories, he was a man with two heads. A man who could think as a pair, and as a single mind. The legend said of the King,
Out of two, one.
And to Peers, that spoke of the Meyers. Two bodies, not just two heads. But essentially the same.
 

The Warrior. The Innocent. The Villain. The Magician. The Sage.

And of course, there was the Fool.

A noise came from ahead. Peers had heard it many times, but not for a long while: the deep-throated purr of Reptars. He and Aubrey had left London before the siege, and once he’d started his wandering the Astrals had stayed mostly away. They’d parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses, taking to the periphery. That had always been convenient, and finding the Den and its horde of technology had been ideal icing on the ultimate cake. But looking back, was there a reason for it?

Peers stormed past Piper and Cameron’s room. Then past Lila and Clara’s. He felt a pang of guilt thinking of the girl, and what might have become of her. But if Ravi left the note rather than the Mullah as a whole, what did it mean? It wasn’t the threat they’d taken it to be — the threat that had sent Cameron to the Ark, that had convinced Meyer and Kindred to go along with Jabari’s plan to rock the city’s complacency from its rut. And judging by the activity outside and the purrs ahead, they’d succeeded famously if unsettling people was the goal. Ravi had said the Mullah were
interested
in Clara. And considering that Peers had seen her in the hallway the night Nocturne had gone wandering, she must have somehow encountered their hidey-hole. Somewhere in the tunnels, apparently accessible near the place he’d seen Clara last, not far from the room in which he’d found the Astral memory sphere.
But where?

Around a corner. And then there were two Reptars ahead, their large, black, insect/panther bodies entirely filling the hallway.

He turned. Another was behind him.
 

The Reptars purred. They came forward.
 

Peers backed against the wall, sweating, swallowing, his heartbeat like the thrum of a rapid-fire tympani. The single Reptar came closer, the blue spark in its throat churning as it exhaled, death on its breath. Peers pressed back harder as if he might go through the wall itself.
 

He closed his eyes, waiting for the end. He felt the huge thing press into him, rubbing him with its scaly skin. He heard the clattering of its claws, too close. Then more claws, more breath, more purring. But different now.
 

Peers opened his eyes. The single Reptar had squeezed by him, and now all three were moving away, toward greener pastures and more suitable victims.

He didn’t stop to wonder. His own room was a few doors down, so he rushed to it, turning the knob, practically falling inside. Nocturne, dutifully in his bed with a chew toy, barked a greeting. Peers closed the door then clicked the thumb lock as if a small bit of wood and thin metal might keep Reptars, Titans, or even human guards at bay. Nocturne started to come forward, tail wagging.

Peers took two steps before the explosion knocked him to his knees, shaking the dog on his four legs, confusion entering his deep brown eyes.

Jesus. Hurry.
 

Whatever was happening out there was falling apart fast. It wouldn’t take hours or days for Ember Flats to eat itself alive; it would be done in clusters of minutes. He shouldn’t even be here. He should already be searching for the tunnels out of this place, ideally for Meyer and Kindred — who, he was now suspecting, were either his ticket out of here or his duty to shepherd safely away. But he could afford the diversion — or rather, he couldn’t afford
not
to take it. The diversion would take only a second. Then he could find Jeanine, apologize, maybe let her punch him in the face. He’d almost welcome it. She could be the muscle for what came next; the Meyers could be the leaders; Charlie could be the brain. Peers would be happy to coast. To try and find a way out then sit back and let others get them away. Which, of course, they would.

Because everyone knew the King survived.
 

If a few Reptars ran into the King in a hallway, they wouldn’t attack. They’d just … squeeze by him or something.
 

Same for any of the Seven.
 

Peers shook off a creeping feeling he’d been trying to shed by pouring all of his focus into catching Ravi after he’d inexplicably become afraid and run away. The feeling was the reason Peers followed. An itch that needed scratching even though he wanted to leave it alone.

He pulled a bag from the corner and fumbled under the bed while Nocturne recovered his wits and came forward, tail still wagging, wet nose investigating Peers’s busy arms. The molding came away easily, and he had the sphere out in seconds. No point in covering his tracks; the device was now mobile, and if anyone learned he’d been hiding something under the bed, so be it.
 

He hefted the sphere, moving it toward the bag’s open mouth.

He thought of Ravi. Of how he’d held them at gunpoint then turned and run. Why had that happened? Peers had been talking about locks, like the one he’d opened to get the sphere. It wasn’t hard to open them even though the elders all had those fancy key rings. Poke three points in the inverted-Triforce keyholes, and doors opened easy as pie.
 

And sure, he’d been the only one of the kids who could do it, after he’d discovered how easy it was. He’d remained Mullah for two full weeks between realizing he could open those locks and being ejected, and during that time all the others he’d shown could never get the hang of it. Only Peers. But that was because he had the knack, not because there was something about Peers, in particular, that let him open locks that ought not be opened.
 

Just like there was nothing about Peers, in particular, that would cause angry Reptars to pass him by while similar Reptars were out in the streets, ripping people to shreds.
 

Ravi’s wide eyes. The change in his expression, after Peers had made a few nothing mentions of events long ago.
 

Ravi’s words. His shock. His fleeing feet.