Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (13 page)

“What do they do?”

“Rudolph’s a time-twister. I don’t know what Beans does. Liz, the blonde, she’s a tracker. Sua’s a water-worker. I forget about Natasha. Metals? Telekinesis? Something cool. Samson can change solids into fluids.”

“What’s a time-twister?”

“Someone who works time. Rudolph can push it back locally about twenty seconds. Oh, and he can work fire, too.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Yup. One of the best fighters we have.”

“I bet.”

Wonder what Yellin thinks of Rudolph.

The slender Second had his back to the rest of us. He was poring over the selections in the restaurant’s jukebox with great attention.

We watched him in silence, then exchanged a look. Kara’s look said,
I know you’re holding out on me
. My look said,
Um … sorry
.

I’d have to tell her about Gwen’s theory. Without connecting it to Gwen, of course.

Yellin put a hand in his pocket as though he might fish a quarter out.

Why had he bothered coming along after Williams had so clearly seized control? If I were him, I’d have slunk away, utterly humiliated.

We both glanced up as Beans approached our table.

“Hiya, Kara. Long time no see. Hi to you too. Don’t think I know you. I’m Beans. Don’t get out this way too much. No, no — don’t stand. Nice to meet you.” All this was said in a quick rat-tat-tat as he sat down.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Beth.”

He was young — maybe twenty — had a sharp-featured face, and was chewing gum a mile a minute. His fingers tap-tap-tapped on the table, and under it, I could feel my pant leg moving slightly. He must’ve been bouncing his foot, making a little breeze. His eyes were bright and lively.

He glanced at Yellin, then looked back at us, cocking his head quizzically.

We both smiled and said nothing. He smiled back.

“So, what’s up? Is there a plan? What’s this Thirsting Ground thing? Never heard of it. Bad news, I guess. Whatcha gonna do? Williams’ll squash it, maybe?”

Kara shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m just a healer.”

“Don’t ask me,” I said. “I’m just a battery.”

“Fuckin’-A, Beth. You’re not a battery.”

“Yeah I am. If I weren’t, it wouldn’t tick you guys off so much when I said so.”

Realization spread across Beans’s face. “Oh, yeah. The one who can’t see. Heard about you. Ton of power, right? Sorry. Bunch of gossips out there. All we do is talk. Sorry. Bunch of chatterboxes.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Beans grinned. “So, the plan. We need a distraction, right? A diversion. Something real lookee-lookee. Maybe someone looks like food. Hurt, maybe. Then — whomp! — up goes a barrier, right? That’s Williams. Pen it up, get it to a power. Sayonara, TG! Makes sense, right?”

Kara and I stared at him, trying to pick meaning out of the avalanche.

I said, “Yeah, sounds good,” just as Kara said, “Dude, ’the fuck you talking about?”

Beans flashed a grin. “Uh-huh. We’re good. Yeah.”

He bounced out of the banquette and headed across the bar. I could hear him cracking his gum.

Kara rubbed her temple. “Jesus. That guy gives me a headache with special sauce.”

“I like him,” I said. “Lots of positive energy.”

“Exactly! What the orange fiery hell is he so happy about? We’re off to chase some kind of living black hole, and it’s like he’s headed to a sock hop. He’s always like that. Christ.”

“Hey, maybe things are peachy in Phoenix. Looks like no one stationed there has defected.”

Kara’s annoyed expression faded to thoughtfulness. “Yeah, you’re right. How ’bout that.”

Just then, Williams and Gwen came back in. At least a dozen new people were following them.

Gwen stopped in the middle of the room, but Williams went and leaned beside the door, arms crossed, looking down. He was probably exhausted from the effort of saying more than four words.

“Okay, folks, listen up,” Gwen said. “We’ve got some colleagues here from Lady Innin’s organization to help us. This doubles our force, so we appreciate it. I’ll let them introduce themselves. Then we’ll go through the plan, make sure everyone’s clear on their role.”

Innin’s people looked like tough customers. As they said their names and briefly described their abilities, I realized she must have sent her strongest people. Gwen’s hesitancy to chalk their assistance up to heartfelt concern started to make more sense. This felt more like a rival power getting her people in prime position for a take-over.

Surprisingly, Gwen’s plan resembled the one Beans had been dancing around: we’d close in on the youngling fragment from all sides. Those who could do something that might hurt it would attack it all at once. Those without directly useful gifts would team up with someone skilled in barriers. The barrier workers would attempt to restrain the fragment while it was distracted. Williams would get close and lay his barrier over theirs. I’d be there to feed power to Williams. Once we had the thing imprisoned, we’d send it through the carven strait. Possibly, Williams and I would need to take it through and then come back.

Once the plan was clear and everyone had established their pairings, we all got back in our cars and headed downtown.

We convened at the place where Andy, Zion, and I had been attacked. Zion was able to find it quickly, and a map of the Manhattan sewer system got us to the closest out-of-the-way manhole, which was off Canal Street.

Andy opened it with a magnetic lever, and Zion took Liz and one of Innin’s trackers down to get a good feel for the youngling’s essence signature.

The rest of us stood around the manhole, waiting for them to come back. Someone must’ve put up a barrier to keep us unseen. I, of course, had no way to know.

“Is it safe for them to be down there alone?” I asked Gwen.

Tracking was a useful gift, but it wasn’t a weapon.

“I think so. Zion says the thing isn’t nearby.”

Sure enough, the three of them emerged safely from the manhole twenty minutes later.

“Got it?” Williams said to Liz.

“Yeah. No problem.”

He turned to Zion. “Go home.”

Zion nodded and headed back to the cars. She’d been drained just three days ago, which meant she was functional but not fully recovered.

“Where is it?” Williams said.

“About fifteen miles away, I’d say.” Liz pivoted around. “That direction.”

“Northwest,” Gwen said. “It crossed the Hudson.”

“Huh,” Liz said. “That’s weird. It’s moving toward us.”

I shared a look with Andy and Theo. Northwest was the direction of The Blue Schooner. Had it been chasing after us? After me?

We all headed to the cars and started back the way we’d come. Since Zion had taken one of them, things were a bit more squeezed. I ended up in a backseat between Kara and Sua. Neither was in the mood to talk.

Truthfully, neither was I. I knew what was coming — the agony of having someone draw on my capacity, compounded by the fact it’d be Williams doing it.

It shouldn’t hurt to share strength, but for me it did. My capacity was largely dormant and completely out of my control. I couldn’t offer it. It had to be taken forcibly. And Williams was pretty much the last person in the world I wanted touching me, much less reaching somewhere deep inside me and ripping stuff out.

God, what if the pain got bad enough that my so-called gift put in an appearance? That could kill him and maybe everyone else in the area. There wouldn’t be a thing I could do to stop it.

I’d wanted so much to help, but maybe it was a bad idea.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry. We couldn’t bring the youngling to bay.

Under Liz’s guidance, we followed it back into Jersey. As we drew closer to it, it backed off. It seemed able to move quickly. We never got within a half-mile of it. It led us back into Manhattan, and we chased it far downtown before it skipped across the East River into Brooklyn. At first I thought it might be heading for Sturluson, but instead it shadowed us on the east bank of the river, pausing when we paused, retreating when we advanced. It very clearly sensed us and wasn’t going to let us catch it.

In the end, we gave up. Innin’s people headed back to The Blue Schooner, and we returned to the estate.

So much for all the drama. It was absurdly anticlimactic.

“The estate’s barrier will keep it out, right?”

Andy said, “Yeah, for sure,” and Kara said, “Definitely.”

At the same moment, Gwen said, “It depends.”

I wanted to know because apparently the thing was right outside.

After getting back to the estate, we’d all gathered in Theo’s suite to come up with a new plan of attack. After about half an hour, Liz and Zion had both come to attention. They could feel the youngling approaching. It had come to within about a half-mile of the estate and stopped.

Sturluson’s claim that it was attracted to me seemed more and more plausible. So why, Williams had pointed out, were we chasing the thing around? If we stayed in one place, it would come to us.

Everyone liked this approach better than the idea of having a show-down with the fragment in the middle of the city. It wasn’t easy to keep a big fight unnoticed, and Cordus wasn’t around to brainwash any humans who saw something they shouldn’t.

Not that I was sure he’d do that, anyway. Maybe they’d just get killed.

The only part of the plan people didn’t like was me standing outside the estate barrier and acting as bait. Andy angrily pointed out that this meant subjecting the most helpless person there to all the risk.

Williams just stared at him. Andy backed down, but not gracefully, as Theo had. There was a lot of cussing involved.

After things were decided, the Phoenix people had excused themselves for the night. Bizarrely, Yellin had stayed on. He was sitting stiffly in an armchair, holding a glass of seltzer water.

Seeing him in that space was almost more than I could process. My eyes kept straying over to him, as though to confirm for the twentieth time that, yes, he was really there.

Realizing I was probably offending him by glancing at him yet again, I turned my attention to Gwen and asked her why she thought the estate barrier might not keep the youngling out.

She looked to Yellin, deferring to him, but he said nothing.

“Lord Cordus poured a lot of power into the barrier,” she said. “It’s extremely stable, but it could be broken by a very strong entity, one that’s able to put more into the unworking than he put into the working.”

Andy shook his head. “Miss Sturluson said Lord Cordus could destroy the youngling. She seemed certain about that. The youngling can’t be that strong.”

“Miss Sturluson may be certain,” Gwen said, “but feeling certain and being right are not the same. Also, Lord Cordus might well be stronger than the fragment, but we don’t know how much strength he put into the barrier. A strong worker can make a weak working, if he wants to.”

That was the kind of caution that had kept Gwen alive for so long.

Yellin stirred. “A valid point, Miss Hegstrom, but I think it unlikely that the infant fragment could overpower either Lord Cordus himself or the barrier he erected. Keep in mind he had the assistance of others in creating the estate’s shield.” He nodded toward Williams, who was leaning silently against the far wall. “It is both well designed and very strong.”