The Future Falls (34 page)

“Well . . .” She ground out the last smoldering print with the toe of her boot. It looked like they'd used the carving to anchor the gate. “. . . that's convenient.”

Closing the gate meant changing the carving, but it only took a slight and
barely visible adjustment to lock “Land of Hope and Gory” to the site. If any variation of the Hunt tried to get back through, they'd find a full brass section locking them out.

Then she climbed to the top of the slope, slipped into the Wood between two junipers, thought about heading for Tokyo, decided the kitsune wouldn't appreciate her sticking her nose into what didn't concern her, and finally stepped out between two honey locusts in downtown Vancouver. A quick run across Granville Street later and she was heading down the stairs into The Cellar in a desperate attempt to get the damned bluebirds out of her head.

She should've gone with Blake.

Still high enough he could be seen only as moving darkness against the stars, Jack realized that the lit areas of the Forks were, if not teeming, then well populated with people trying to spot the naked woman in the river. The naked woman in the river who'd already lured two men to their death.

Humans were weird.

In the UnderRealm, people either avoided Sirens or used them as weapons against enemies who were unaware of their locations. In the MidRealm, armed with cell phone cameras and the mistaken belief that a few thousand hits on YouTube meant immortality, danger was relentlessly recorded.

If the asteroid did hit, if they couldn't stop it, Jack knew thousands of people would record right up until the flesh burned off their bones.

He gritted his teeth and circled until he managed to replace the image of Charlie burning with Charlie lying out on the roof, then, wings aching, he looked for a place to land.

The triangular park that created the actual fork between the Red and Assiniboine Rivers was unlit on the water side of the railroad tracks. It wasn't empty—given the news report that would be too much to ask—but it was dark, so Jack wrapped himself in shadow, landed unseen, and moved to stand behind three young women who had one hell of a lot of electronic equipment pointed at the water.

Given that the kindest thing he could say about most myths and legends was
close but not quite
—the Court wasn't particularly hung up on gender, their own or anyone else's—the lack of young men could only be considered
a good try. Then he realized all the gesturing had a purpose and that two of the young women were deaf. The third wore wax earplugs. That got them two thumbs way up for paying attention to the important bits. Bare hands tracing words in the air, they didn't seem bothered by the temperature; although if they were locals, October weather was nothing on the winters they'd already survived.

He thought they might be scientists or folklorists or something-ists. Serious about capturing myth in a way that the cell phone holders weren't. He almost felt bad about what he was about to do to their data and wondered how they'd react if he told them about the asteroid.

Maybe if they couldn't stop the asteroid, he'd find these girls again and tell them about the Courts. And the Gales. And dragons.

Still wrapped in shadow and breathing heavily, he moved up to the left of their equipment and stared out at the river.

City lights danced across the light chop, gleaming or sparkling depending on the source, without doing a thing to make the water look less cold and nasty. Granted, a Siren wouldn't feel the cold, but if he hadn't known what he knew and he'd heard what sounded like a girl singing in that river at this time of the year, his reaction would be more
you have got to be kidding
than
oh, yeah
,
baby baby, I'm on my way
.

At eleven on a Tuesday night, the city had gone quiet enough he could hear the water lapping at the shore. It sounded a little like dragon wings. Like the song of the air slipping over and around and . . .

Actually, it didn't sound anything at all like dragon wings.

It sounded like water.

The girl-shape sitting on the rock-shape in the center of the river shrugged. “Can't blame me for trying.”

“Yeah, I can.” If he'd had pockets, he'd have shoved his hands into them. “You shouldn't be here.”

She combed her fingers through her hair, the emerald-green strands falling around her in a shimmering curtain. “You're not my prince, Dragon.”

“So the Court keeps saying.” The three young women were frantically adjusting their equipment, hands flying in what, to his untrained eye, looked like profane gestures. Technology and sorcery didn't mix and the first thing Jack had ever learned to do with his, as he crawled out from under the shelter of his mother's wing, was hide. Even exhausted from the speed of his
flight, he'd barely noticed the effort needed to extend the concealment out over the Siren. “You killed two people.”

“Two die now. Billions die later.” She shrugged. “All I did was sing.”

Charlie Sang. As far as Jack knew, no one had ever drowned listening to her. “We're not going to let billions die.”

“Really?
We
thought Gales were all about family and letting the rest of the world burn.”

They weren't wrong.

“So where's the Bard?” she asked, eyes narrowed. “I was looking forward to a truncated version of
Canadian Idol
. We could keep score with the lives of the audience. She saves more than I drown, she wins. They still lose, but who cares about them.”

“Go home.”

“Make me. Oh, wait . . .” Her smile didn't fit on her face. “. . . you can't.” One bare foot kicked a spray of water toward him. “You're fire, I'm water, and as long as I'm in the middle of the river, which is pretty much where I am all the time, you can't touch me. Everyone knows dragons can't swim.”

Jack spread his wings. “Why would I swim?”

“You smell like beer.”

Charlie lifted her arm and waved the damp spot at him, the darker fabric barely visible in the predawn light. “Spill on the bar. I'm wearing more beer than I'm drinking these days. Did you get them?”

“I did.” Graham moved out from behind a sweet gum and into the predawn light. “And I got some information as well.”

“Chupacabras talk?”

“No. I ran into a young man who works at the golf club who was also hunting . . .”

“The chupacabras?”

“Why not? It's his country,” Graham pointed out. Charlie noticed he too had damp spots on his jacket and made a mental note to have him leave it in the downstairs bathroom. Pregnant, Allie had a violent reaction to the smell of blood. “Jorge was, conveniently, out on the beach this afternoon. He says
he saw two people driving the chupacabras out into the crowds. After that, the running and the screaming was pretty much guaranteed.”

“Did he say what the two people looked like?”

“Thin, arrogant, and tall. Real tall. He also said, they moved like dancers. Or water.”

“Or water?” Charlie frowned. “Are you sure you understood him?”

“He works at a five star resort, his English is better than mine. Thin, tall, strangely graceful—any idea why the Courts would drive chupacabras out to attack people?”

She shrugged. “Who knows what the Courts think is fun?”

“Valid point. However . . .”

However
trailed off into the cry of an early rising bird. After a moment Charlie realized Graham wasn't waiting for the bird to finish, he was waiting for her. Had he been Roland or Cameron, a Gale by blood not marriage, Charlie would have deflected. But, like Joe, in spite of anchoring second circle with Allie, Graham was outside the family power structure. Like Joe, there was a good chance he'd get the reasoning behind going to the Courts. “Jack and Joe and I may have mentioned the end of the world to a couple of full-bloods who play basketball at U of C. Just to see if the Courts had a way to stop the asteroid.”

“The Courts don't care what happens to the MidRealm.”

“They care about basketball.”

“Save the world, save March Madness?” Graham thought about it for a moment. “That's shallow and superficial enough to be plausible. And?”

“They can't stop the asteroid.”

“So they figure if the world's going to end, they might as well have some fun before it does.”

“That's jumping to a bit of a . . .” When his brows rose, she sighed. “Yeah, probably.”

“The aunties aren't going to be happy. Auntie Jane told you not to go to the Courts.”

“Yeah, well, Auntie Jane's going to have to be unhappy.” She scuffed the side of her boot against the ground, watching the line of darker grass emerge as she swept the dew away. “Jack and I agreed we have to try everything.”

“So you and Jack are . . .”

“Frustrated, star-crossed, tediously cliché if you're not into romantic
angst, and not about to break that particular rule.” When Graham took a step back, both hands raised, Charlie realized she may have spit that out a bit vehemently. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” He shifted his weapon case until he could wrap his arms around it. Charlie decided not to mention the symbolism. “Allie said you two are destined? It's a Gale thing?”

“We aren't destined. I'm a free electron.” With any luck, her smile looked more believable than it felt. “We just like each other too much for the age difference.”

Graham hummed a thoughtful G flat. “You don't find it strange that it's all about your ages and not your species?”

Charlie shrugged. “He'd be seventeen no matter what species he was. Can we not talk about it?”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Sure. And, as it happens, I agree with your choice. About trying everything and checking with the Courts. The aunties won't.”

“No shit. Remember I've known them longer than you have.” She held out her hand for his. It was time they went home. “The aunties don't need to know.”

Charlie was waiting on the roof, wrapped in her quilt and drinking a coffee when Jack arrived just after sunrise. She was like his own personal beacon, there to guide him home. When he saw her, he knew everything was going to be fine. And frustrating. He'd begun to find frustration comforting. Fuck his life. Eyes locked on her face, he changed, and sagged against the stairwell. “I'd have called if the aunties could make a phone that doesn't melt in dragon fire. I thought you might've Walked to me after you were done.”

“I wasn't sure what would happen if you were flying.”

He thought about Charlie appearing beside him and realized that at the speed he'd been maintaining, she'd have hit the ground before he got turned around. If he even noticed she was there at all. Too tired to smoke when he yawned, he muttered, “Good call. Siren's silenced.”

“And the Hunt's home.” She grinned at him over the edge of her mug. “Not even going to try with the chupacabras. Graham took them out
and
he
made a friend.” Then the grin disappeared, and Jack spent a moment worried Graham had gotten hurt before he realized that Graham hurt would mean Allie reacting would mean he'd be hearing a lot more emergency vehicles out on the streets. “I should feel like I got something accomplished last night,” Charlie continued, dropping a troubled gaze down into her mug. “But if we're all going to die anyway, last night was nothing more than spitting into the wind. Tugging Superman's cape. Taking the mask . . .”