Velveteen (36 page)

“Look at that!” Nick yelled.

In the distance, one of the spires of the cathedral cracked apart and plummeted to the square below, crushing the gaslights and bringing down their hoses. The souls rushing into the church for some chance at safety screamed and scattered.

Velvet sped off toward the next street and at the intersection was relieved to see the dorm at the far end still standing, its columns unmarred by cracks. The front door was open, but plastered there like a threat were hundreds of flyers for the revolution. But these were different from before.

These read:

The Departure Is Now
.

Velvet tore one from the door and stumbled across the shaking breezeway and into the courtyard, Nick hot on her heels. What she found inside chilled her to the bone.

One of the gaslights had broken open, and a fire blazed up the interior wall. Beyond that, a group of souls gathered around the foot of the staircase. A shower of pebbles created a haze in the air, and as Velvet and Nick broke through the crowd, Velvet saw why.

The frieze from above them had fallen and crushed someone, the impact diminishing the victim to ash. Velvet screamed. She dropped to the floor next to the shadowy remnants. Luisa crawled in beside her.

“It’s Miss Antonia,” the little girl said softly.

A low moan loosed from Velvet’s throat. Miss Antonia was gone. Velvet couldn’t imagine it.

“She asked for you in the end,” the little girl said, her face a study in sorrow.

Velvet shook her head, not understanding. “For me? Why? What did she say?”

“That you’ll fix all this.”

Velvet gasped and stared at what was left of the Salvage mother’s face, a crumbling mask of curled ash, like the flaking of aged paint peeling away from garden statuary. The pieces dropped away and caught on the wind that lapped the inside of the courtyard like waves.

“What did you mean, Miss Antonia?” Velvet murmured. She felt strong hands on her shoulders and knew they belonged to Nick. She sensed his warm feelings and somehow knew that everything would be all right. A shadow crossed
over the crowd, and she looked up to find Logan standing there, a shallow smile playing across his lips.

“The shadowquake didn’t get her, Velvet. She dimmed. It was her time, and she was fine with it.” For some reason, Velvet had found, little kids were much more accepting of the whole dimming thing than she was. And despite the bravery on Logan’s face, Velvet wanted to scream.

Nearby, another chunk of the frieze fell and shattered into a pile of rock and pebbles that scattered across the courtyard, popping against the uneven pavers like popcorn.

It was almost too much to take.

What had just happened with Bonesaw, the secret she’d been keeping about haunting, the revolutionaries, the shadowquake, the revelation of Nick’s feelings—hell, her own feelings about him. The thoughts wound around her brain like searing-hot barbed wire. And now this—Miss Antonia’s death. She sighed, closed her eyes, and tried to make sense of it all.

She refused to believe that her brief trips to hinder Bonesaw had caused the current catastrophe. The level of the disturbance and her intent didn’t even compare to killing a teenage boy and trapping his soul in a crystal ball. So she planned on shelving that theory in the
not
category.

Velvet knelt beside Miss Antonia’s ashes, thrust her hand inside, and drew a fistful back. She smeared it across her face like a warrior’s stripe. When she glanced back at the pile, she caught sight of something bright glinting in the mound. She reached in and pulled out a tiny, familiar red key. Velvet recognized it immediately.

It was the same as the one Manny had had hidden in her drawer.

Velvet casually palmed it, not wanting to start a conversation or draw any attention to the item. She wasn’t sure what it meant, whether the women were in some sort of secret club. She just didn’t know.

Nick smiled empathetically. He squeezed her shoulder and pressed in close to her ear. “Time for you to do what you do best.”

Velvet glanced to her right and left. Logan stood stoically amid the dark clouds of gas swirling about them from the whipping broken hoses that fed the lights. Luisa gave her a quick grin and a thumbs-up. And from the breezeway another figure stumbled into the courtyard.

Kipper.

He held his head up high and strode toward them.

“You’re gonna need all the help you can get,” he offered, his face resolved.

“Thanks, Kipper,” she said. “I’m definitely taking you up on that.”

She stood and trod to the center of the courtyard. A fire lapped up the wall that used to be covered in posters of exotic travel destinations and musical acts. Now curled and charred to ash, the posters fell in piles like snowdrifts against the walls. But the flames were subsiding. The building, constructed primarily of stone, didn’t lend itself to feeding the fire much, and soon the blaze would be out. Above her, from the balconies, she heard the whimpering and cries of the tenants. “Mrs. Lawrence!”

The Collector mother popped up from a crouch by the stage.

“You’ll have to take charge of both dorms,” Velvet said. “Make sure our people are safe, and if it looks like the building can’t take much more, evacuate them to the funicular track.”

Mrs. Lawrence nodded and ran toward the stairs. “Clear the floors!” she called out.

Velvet summoned her team around her.

“We’re going up to the station. Manny will know what to do. Though I suspect this operation is going to be our hardest yet.” She glanced at Nick.

His expression was grim. “Am I really prepared for this?” he asked. “Haven’t really had a ton of training, have I?”

Kipper stepped in next to him and addressed Velvet. “I’ll watch out for him.”

Velvet knew that if anyone could protect her team, Kipper could. But there was something there, a struggle in the tension of his jaw, in the tight balls of his fists. He had been very close to Miss Antonia. She knew he’d be taking it hard, but with Kipper, for all his macho posturing, you never could tell when he’d break down and let his emotions flood out. The last thing she needed was another pile of ash right then. She cocked her head in his direction and asked, “Was the mission to Vermillion successful?”

He shook his head and looked away. “Nothing.”

“Damn.” Velvet had been certain he would find a lead to Clay. She straightened. “Well, then, if we could just catch some luck and find the railcars in working order,” she said,
leading the team toward the breezeway. “That’s probably asking too much.”

Logan sped past and into the street. The black clouds were finally descending into the streets, signaling the coming of the fiercest quakes. Visibility was about to become impossible.

Velvet turned to Luisa and grabbed her hand. She slipped it into the back of her waistband and balled it up. “Tight,” she ordered, and then raised her fist to the others. “Tight, like this. Link up. We’ve got a long hike, I’m afraid.”

They were just barely connected, a string of fragile pearls amid the sharp edges and falling buildings. All around them walls crumbled and metal screamed as it bent and gave way to the weight. The ground shook and the quintet stumbled and sidestepped on their trek to the ramp at the far end of the block.

Velvet led them up and over the curb and onto the tracks. She stooped, gripping the tracks as she had done only a day ago, and felt nothing. Nothing besides the tremors they’d felt everywhere else. No movement.

The funicular wasn’t engaged. It was broken. Velvet’s eyes turned skyward, toward the monolithic mountain and the station and the miles of track between them.

She screamed in frustration and stood up.

“Let’s go!” she called back to her team, eyes lingering on Nick’s solid frame bringing up the rear. Velvet thought she saw Kipper notice the exchange. He stood just beyond Nick, and she could see a question forming in his eyes, burning there like coals. Velvet wondered if he’d be the one to tell,
out of jealousy or whatever. She definitely didn’t have time for the argument, though.

They traveled close to the rails, trying to keep a steady pace as the tracks began to slope upward toward the great mountain of the station. It wasn’t long before they found themselves crammed into a crowd of refugees, all with the same idea, heading for safety. The tracks were probably tight with the thousands of residents of the Latin Quarter all the way to the tunnels, a veritable logjam. The darkness had descended, and as they squeezed along to the track wall, pushing past the throngs of moaning, frantic souls, Velvet felt Luisa’s small hand slip from the waistband of her pants.

She spun toward the girl. A woman, head wrapped in a scarf and as dull as the last moment of dusk, slipped into the girl’s place. Velvet pushed her aside, perhaps too brutally, and to no avail—behind her was a little boy, face pressed against the hip of a middle-aged man in a long wool overcoat. He glowered at Velvet and clutched the boy even closer to his side.

“Luisa!” Velvet screamed, and vaulted out of the canal of tracks, out of the shuffling herds of souls and up onto the street level.

To her right, Nick and Kipper were dragging an exhausted and limp Logan from the clamor. They fell back onto the cobblestone. Nick was checking the boy for wounds with such intensity, you’d think he were the boy’s father.

“Where’s Luisa?” she shouted in Nick’s direction.

Nick shook his head, and Logan, who’d been holding on
to his sister, was wild-eyed with horror. “I lost her. Couldn’t hang on.”

As they talked, the crowd continued sluicing on toward the station. The street sat on a shelf above a deep groove where the railcars traveled, and Velvet crawled on her hands and knees up to the edge. She reached into the crowd, pushing shoulders away, trying to get a peak between the refugees.

“Luisa! Have you seen a little girl?” Velvet yelled into their faces, terrified that the Salvage team would have to go on without her favorite poltergeist. Her heart pounded. Her skin glowed as hot as the brightest gaslight.

Then Nick was by her side, then Kipper. Their horror, their fear, cut through the ash in shimmering spikes from their panicked faces. The sheer passion of their conviction shone through the black ooze of the shadowquake, piercing it like columns of sunlight shining into a dark basement, or the first rays of morning shining into the tiny windowpane of a farmhouse shed—Velvet shook off the memory.

The sight of the Salvage team aura stopped the herd of souls in their tracks, and a hush fell over them, screams dying, replaced by a sudden calm.

Velvet took advantage of the break. “Luisa!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Here!” a thin voice called out.

Ahead, near the edge of their glow, Luisa’s face poked up from the heads around her. She was climbing atop a man in a baseball cap.

Velvet rushed forward, relief swelling inside her, and
motioned for the man, whose pleasant face nodded in her direction. He knew what she wanted without being asked. It was like they were all connected in a common goal. He hoisted Luisa up, and using a couple of strangers’ shoulders as stepping stones, she hopped across the crowd—shouting “Sorry”—onto the curb, and into Velvet’s arms. She glanced back in the man’s direction to thank him, but the souls had already rushed forward.

“This isn’t working,” Velvet said, and sighed.

“We’re going to have to go up another way,” Kipper said, suddenly at her side.

“I agree.” Nick’s hand slipped around Velvet’s waist protectively.

“No,” she whispered, and shook it off. “Not now.” She glanced toward Kipper, who thankfully was scanning the crowd instead of playing hall monitor.

The street went only so far before it gave way to a nearly impassible rocky cliff face. Velvet knew that, on even the most placid of days, the climb would be treacherous, but in the midst of a massive shadowquake the climb would be impossible. Her head swam with the sounds of the buildings collapsing, the screams. The dorms were in danger. There had to be a way.

“What about the alley?” Nick suggested.

“The alley?” She shook her head, not really comprehending.

“Where we just came from.”

She pulled him close and whispered, “Are you suggesting that we reveal the secret?”

He shook his head and gave her a grin that clearly implied
she was being an idiot. “Of course not, just the crack. We found it. No big deal.”

The idea was brilliant, but it would involve a lie and it would invite tons of questions. Velvet rankled, but as she watched the mass of refugees tumble over each other to climb to the station’s safety, she couldn’t think of any other way. And the pull-focus would be the same they used each time they returned from purgatory. Easy.

“Follow me!” she shouted.

Velvet gestured for the team to link up again, and she led them back toward the heart of the Latin Quarter, first balancing on the thin curb above the funicular tracks and then dropping down into the gap, once the crowds thinned to only a few stragglers. The inky clouds that accompanied the shadowquakes became denser, pooling around the roofs of buildings and drizzling over the sides in wiggling streaks. As they reached the mouth of the alley, Velvet knew they’d made a mistake.

A solid shadowy mass blocked the street on the opposite side of the Paper Aviary, so large that even as she noticed the threat, it filled in behind them, trapping them. She peered into the slender alley and the total blackness, but that didn’t bother her as much as the noise issuing from its depths, rhythmic and wet.

Thwap
ping thuds.

Dripping, dreadful splats.

Velvet felt a grim shiver travel the length of her spine and settle in her head like a cramp. Beside her, Luisa gasped and Logan took a step backward. Kipper bit his lip, and Nick simply looked around for the source.

He’d see them soon enough, Velvet thought, and pressed into the alley a bit—far enough to see the blurry outlines of tentacles stretched down the sides of the walls, lapping at the Salvage team like tongues reaching for that last little taste of a delicacy. The tentacles licked at the stone, curling back and slapping, searching for unwilling souls to broadcast their horror shows into.