The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (44 page)

“Time to fly.” I checked the craft. There were puddles on the floor, but the mast looked true, the vortex was at full charge, and I finally felt like my feet had landed on a concrete sense of
yes
, this was what I was. I could fly. We could make it.

The screams were getting worse from below. Shots rang out from the guards at the pyramid entrance, followed by the smashing of glass.

I checked the sails and found they’d been patched up. “Everything’s good to go. Thank you, Victoria.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

We turned to see Victoria being helped up the steps by Mica. She was in her costume: the crimson robes, the jade-green face, golden sun corona on her head. She was limping, and her free hand was clutching at her chest. Mica guided her across the platform to where the large ceremonial chair lay overturned. He let go of her for a moment. She wobbled in place as he righted the chair, then eased her into it.

She sat there gathering her breath, her eyes tracking slowly over the fire and smoke, the ruins.

There were muffled gunshots from inside the pyramid halls. Mica moved back to the top of the stairs, pulled a rifle off his shoulder, and watched the doors warily.

“Paul did this, didn’t he?” Victoria said weakly.

“Yeah,” I said.

Victoria nodded slowly. “Fitting weather.” Then she kind of laughed, but it hitched into a thick, wet cough. “He thinks he is making a point, showing how much control is possible if you
just have vision
. That’s what he would say.” She coughed again, tearing at her insides. “He probably thinks I’m lamenting the loss of my kingdom, sitting here crying as I watch it all end in blood and fire.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I found that I really did feel bad for her. Compared to Paul, she was infinitely more human.

“Don’t be,” said Victoria. “This was always how it would end. Every civilization is just an attempt, a best guess, given the moment, the ecology, the weather. And they’re all imperfect, shots in the dark, and they all end in a flood. The tide that swallows a people is born of its own darkest desires. This one is no different.” She sighed. “We can only hope that our little step helps the next attempt get closer to divine. That someday humanity becomes something better than itself.”

Victoria’s eyes tracked to me. Raindrops dabbed at her green paint. “Your mother found me in my chamber. She took the skull, and left a knife in my back. Very clever. Paul was always the most clever. Mica found me shortly before the attack. I suppose if I’d been down in Tactical I’d already be dead.” She coughed, covered her mouth with her hand, then looked at it. She held her palm out toward us, coated in red. “Funny,” she said. Water washed the blood in streaks down her arm.

“We got the skull back,” I said.

More shots from behind. The smashing of glass close by.

“Mother,” Mica warned. “We need to go.”

Victoria ignored him. “You have the skull,” said Victoria. She coughed. More fluid. “That’s fortunate. And do we know what happened to dear Seven? Last I saw her she was sulking around Tactical after you left and drowning her angst in Shine.”

“I’m here, Mother.” Seven came sauntering up the steps. I saw that her face was badly bruised, probably from Francine and Emiliano, and there seemed to be long cuts on her arms and a dark patch by her neck, maybe from the claws of Cryos, yet somehow she’d changed into her white Heliad dress. She’d put a tiara on her head, and even dusted herself in sparkling powder so that she glimmered in the firelight like a star fallen to earth. She scooted around Mica and crossed the platform, her steps wobbly, her legs like rubber.

“Look,” she said. “I dressed for the big event! Even though I’m not part of it. All that work just to get cut from the grand finale.” I caught a glimpse of her eyes and could see the free spin, worse now than before, like she’d taken even more.

And somehow it made my heart break for her, despite the storm in my head. I remembered Seven’s story, of being plucked out of life, of having no place in time. A feeling I now knew all too well. Maybe we could get her in the craft, anyway. Lilly would object. And she might be right. But still . . .

Seven swooned, and as her hands went out against the air to steady herself, I saw that she was holding the giant obsidian knife. She righted herself, and started making little circles with it in the air in front of her. The blood and water trickling down her pale arms and neck collected glitter dust in shimmering rivulets.

We stared at her, strangely rapt, as she moved to the very edge of the blast crater, and it seemed for sure like she was just going to walk right off. Leaning . . . “There’s a lot of divine on display down there tonight,” she said darkly. Then, she turned and stepped over behind Victoria’s ceremonial chair, leaning on it woozily, and stood there almost like she and Victoria were a team.

“I’m glad you’re here, Seven,” said Victoria.

“I know you are, Beloved Mommy, but I have a surprise for you.”

Victoria coughed, and even in pain, when she spoke she sounded exasperated. “What’s that?”

Seven lifted the knife, its point wavering, flicking water drops, and for a moment Victoria flinched and Mica tensed, but then Seven wagged it at us. “She’s the Medium.”

Victoria didn’t move, but her eyes seemed to register real surprise. “Really.” She tried to glance up at Seven, the motion clearly hurting her. “You—”

“Am just a girl who died a long time ago,” said Seven. She giggled lightly. “I was never even here.” She swayed, looking like she might fall over. The knife traced unstable arcs.

Banging now. Close. Mica shouted down the handprint hallway. “Hold that position!” Screams and more shots muffled, but close. “Mother,” Mica said. “Quickly.”

Victoria ignored him again. She was looking at us. “So, you three, right there,
you’re
the Three.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Listen, I can fly you all out, at least far enough from those copters—”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Victoria.

“Why—”

“She’s going to kill you,” Seven suddenly blurted. “Don’t you get it?” She laughed, high and shrill. “She’s been planning to kill us all along. Haven’t you, O Benevolent Mother?”

Victoria’s gaze stayed on us. Then she sort of shrugged. “Well, not until you’d flown away and were well out of my people’s sight. I was going to wait until you were about fifty kilometers south before I had the drones shoot you down.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “Why?”

“It’s so
obvious
,” said Seven. “Mother, the great director at work.”

“I suppose that boy told you,” said Victoria, glancing up at Seven. “You wrapped him around your finger and he was able to get you that information.”

“Nico,” said Seven. She drew a little heart in the air with the tip of the knife. “Darling Nico.”

“He’s dead, I’m sure,” said Victoria, “down in Tactical.”

Seven stopped drawing. “Oh well.” She aimed her gyrating eyes at me. “Rule number six: no gods equals no Paul finding Atlantis.”

Don’t think you know what Mother is thinking
, she’d said.

“Sad, but true,” said Victoria. “You would’ve flown out of my story, satisfied my people, and then I would have ended your threat to the world. Without you, Paul can never find the Paintbrush.”

I felt myself draining to empty. After all this . . . We’d been dead all along.

“But I don’t know if he needs us,” said Lilly. I saw that she was slowly rotating the backpack off her shoulder. To get to the skull, and fire its light, talking to stall . . . “They shot Leech, even though he’s one of us.”

There was a loud succession of thumps and now the smashing of glass. Screams that had been muffled now became immediate. Shots rang out. Mica fired three rounds back down the hall. “We need to go, Mother!” he shouted.

“Okay, okay. Owen, Lilly, I’m sorry but it’s time for you to volunteer, for the good of everyone else.” She nodded to Mica.

His gun swung around toward us—

“Lilly!” She didn’t have the skull out yet, and I dove and pulled her into the craft.

As I fell I heard Seven scream. “Live bright!”

There was a sound—a tearing crunch followed by a choked gasp—and then the crack of bullets. I tensed, expecting them to hit the craft, but they didn’t.

Lilly and I looked up to see Mica aiming across the platform, and Seven staggering back from the ceremonial chair, her hands empty and held high. Red blossomed on her dress.

The ceremonial knife was buried in Victoria’s chest.

Seven stumbled toward the edge.

“Seven!” I shouted, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Mica spinning his gun toward us.

“Get her,” said Lilly. She had the gleaming skull in her hands and jumped up, whispering in ancient tones.
“Qii-Farr-saaan . . .”

White light burst from the skull and Lilly at once, seeming to pour out of her eyes and mouth. Wind buffeted Mica as he fired, and the bullets sailed wide. Lilly stepped out of the craft and walked toward him, her hair flaring around her. Mica stumbled back, the wind vicious, the light blinding.

I turned to see that Seven had reached the very edge of the platform, her toes over the abyss.

“Careful!” I shouted, starting toward her.

She wobbled in place, looking at her chest, at the blood seeping into her soaked dress, then down at the plaza, far below. She turned to me. “Claire.”

“What?”

“That was my non-god name. Just Claire.” She smiled at me. “Time to fly.”

I stepped closer, holding out my hand. “It is. Let’s go.”

Seven shook her head sadly. “Not with you. Third option.”

“Third—” I didn’t know—but then I did.

Her smile faded and her eyes locked on mine. “So long, flyboy.” She spread her arms.

“Wait!” I lunged for her. My fingers grazed her dress, but she stepped off the edge and plummeted out of sight.

I stared at the space where she’d just been. Distantly, I heard the heavy sound of impact.

“Get back!”

I turned. Mica was shouting from somewhere down the steps. Lilly was aiming her light down there. There were gunshots, snarls, and now a terrified scream.

“They’re here!” Lilly called. “We need to go!”

I started toward the craft, but glanced at Victoria, slumped in her chair. Her hands were flailing at her neck. Her eyes were wide and staring at me and her mouth was moving like she was trying to say something, but only making choking sounds. . . .

I checked Lilly. She seemed to be holding them back. I ran over to Victoria. She had managed to pull a chain out from around her neck. A necklace with an antique metal locket at the end. I reached around the hilt of the giant knife, pulled the locket from her fingers, and flicked it open. Inside were two capsules of Shine. I found her looking at me. I tapped the capsules into my hand.

But we needed information first. “What do you know about the Ascending Stars?” I shouted at her. “What is Paul doing?”

“I . . .” she croaked. Her mouth kept moving, but blood dribbled out of the corners, and no sound came out. She looked up toward the sky. Coughed up more blood.

“Owen!” Lilly was backing up toward the craft. “Hurry!”

I saw the bodies jerking their way up the staircase. Women, men, children, old and young, some with blood around their mouths, some with bullet holes that hadn’t worked. They fought against the wind and light, relentless.

I looked back to find Victoria reaching for me, her fingers pawing at my hands, at the Shine. Her fingers . . .

I pressed the Shine against her bloody lips. “There’s one more thing we need,” I said. I grasped the wet handle of the ceremonial knife with both hands and pulled. It tore free with a crunch. Victoria gasped. Then she looked at the knife and at me.

“Time to volunteer,” I said. I grabbed her right hand and pressed it down against the armrest.

As I lowered the knife, it shook in my hand, and I thought there was no way I could do this, but I remembered what Leech had said: Paul would never hesitate, to kill us, to take my memories, erase my sister, then raise her from the dead and send her after me. Victoria wouldn’t hesitate to shoot us down to save her people. . . .

And after everything we’d been through . . . I wouldn’t either.

I lowered the knife against the base of Victoria’s pinkie, the heavy serrated teeth denting the skin. I glanced back at Victoria. Her eyes were wide, the pupils just starting to spin, but I felt her arm stop fighting. She closed her eyes.

I pressed down and sawed back and forth. There was a wet, tearing sound. A faint, high moan escaped Victoria’s lips.

I finished and threw the knife away, holding back the urge to vomit. The finger lay there, slightly curled, dotted with rain and leaking blood, its hidden bar code something we might need. I grabbed it, warm in my hand, lurched to my feet, and shoved it in my pocket.

I looked Victoria in the eye one more time. “Live bright,” I said, and ran for the craft.

“Okay, let’s go!” I shouted. Lilly had backed up nearly to the craft. She slumped her shoulders, the light and wind extinguishing. She jumped in. I hit the pedals. As the Cryos streamed up onto the platform, we started to rise.