Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods (19 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

O
ur cab made it over the Verrazano Bridge without any issues.

But as we approached Brooklyn, Antoinette slipped the alarm stone out of her pocket and showed it to me, light pulsing at the pace of an excited heartbeat.

As we drove into Brooklyn, evening traffic slowed everything to a standstill. We left the cab and walked for the subway, and then spent an hour getting back to the project towers in Queens, taking no less than three different subway trains.

“Why is it seemingly impossible to get between Queens and Brooklyn in anything resembling an efficient manner?” I asked while we were on the J train. There, at least, the crowds were thinner.

“Because all the money’s in getting people to and from Manhattan. It might change in a few years with the hipsters and companies moving into Brooklyn and Astoria, but right now, the G is a shitty first step. Trying to get between Central or Eastern Queens and Brooklyn is a crapshoot. You like this,” Antoinette said, waving at the subway car, “you should try the buses.”

I nearly ran to a nearby tree and kissed the ground when we emerged from the catacombs the city passed off as public transit corridors, but my attention was drawn instantly to the smoke winding up into the night sky. Several blocks away, one of the apartment towers was aflame.

“Shit!” Antoinette said, and took off running.

It appeared that the time for my cardiovascular regimen to change was now, and I chased after her.

As we approached, the scene started to take shape. Fire engines were there, along with a dozen police vehicles, ambulances, and a firm cordon blocking off the road that led to the cul-de-sac containing the tower and several others like it.

Which meant that we’d need either a disguise to get in, magic to mask our movement, or an incredibly inventive back door.

“Shit,” I said, mirroring Antoinette as we stood in awe of the chaos. “How will we get in?”

Antoinette’s eyes moved quickly over the scene. “The cordon can’t cover everything, but there will be more cops on-scene where the action is.” She fished out the communication stone and handed it to me.

“Can you turn this into a tracking icon?”

I nodded. “Assuming Carter still has his, and that he doesn’t resist the effects. And that Esther hasn’t so overloaded the area with mystic disturbance—”

“Just try, okay?” Antoinette said.

Which sent me delving once more into the satchel. I’d been so underprepared, thinking I’d escaped my family for good. But this time I had something I had not expected—friends, allies.

Grabbing a pearl for the celestial resonance, I stepped to the side and snapped off a twig from a tree on the sidewalk for local grounding. The twig would hopefully filter out some of the disturbance from Esther’s seemingly flagrant displays of power.

Kneeling, I sank my hand into the chilly mud at the tree’s base, reaching into the tree’s root structure, where it held nutrients to weather the winter. I skimmed a tiny bit of power, not so much that it would hurt the tree, but enough that it would bloom later next year. Tapping the Deeps again this quickly would be inadvisable.

“Thank you,” I told the tree, and breathed out, channeling power into the gems, the twig laid between them. It was a crude ritual, but I hadn’t the time or the tools for a sedate working.

The onyx glowed, then pulled slightly in my hand.

“This way,” I said, walking into an alley.

The stone led us two streets down before turning back toward the towers. I was far from an expert in Deep-forging, but my tracking rituals were perfectly respectable. For that, I had my mother to thank.

In the coldest week of my eighth winter, Mother had driven me ten miles from home and deposited me in the middle of the forest. My tools: a single agate and a pocketknife.

“Make your way home. If you make it by nightfall, you’ll have dinner waiting. If not, then you go to bed hungry.”

I stumbled in hours after dark, heading directly up to bed to collapse, wrapping myself in a dozen blankets and still shivering myself to sleep.

The police had failed to cordon off a small sewage runoff sluice, and there were no officers posted on the cordons on either side. This was our way in. A cramped, calf-straining way in, but it was enough.

Once we were inside the cordon, the stone tugged directly for the burning tower. Three fire trucks were positioned by the building, hoses running, teams of firefighters ferrying people out in pairs and clusters of families. Some had smoke-stained clothes, some were bloodied, and others were brought out on stretchers.

My ears burned, and not just because of the staggering heat rolling off of the tower. But that heat would be a problem, since I’d need to maintain the working to siphon the thermal energy into the ruby, which would leave me unable to do much else. And I definitely didn’t have enough time to create a stable working to perpetuate the effect, let alone a second one for Antoinette.

“We need those firefighter suits,” I said.

“What? We couldn’t even move in those things! I tried one on when I was in high school, and I felt like I was a Victorian diver crossed with a mummy. But we do need something for the heat.”

“It would take me the better part of half an hour to create enchantments to protect us using these rubies,” I admitted. “Elemental magic is not my forte.”

“Do what you can while I try to call Carter,” she said, working her phone and then pressing it to her face, covering her opposite ear.

“Will do,” I said in a soft voice, largely to myself. Trading out gemstones once more, wishing Antoinette had inset rings like Father and Mother used, I drew out two rubies and set them on the ground in front of me, letting the sparse flows of magical energy suffuse them to begin the ritual.

For a greater duration of the effect, I added a sunstone, which also had the sympathetic resonance of sun to fire.

Next, a power source. The working would become largely self-powering when put into effect, but there was the initial outlay necessary.

I could reach to the Deeps for another quick solution, but even an hour hadn’t returned me to a fresh state.

The only sensible option was to stab myself.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

U
sing the ritual knife, I drew a cut width-wise across the back of my wrist, squeezing my fist. Blood dripped onto the stones, and I spoke in Enochian.

“Shield from heat. Draw it in and sustain yourself.”

The blood sizzled on the stones, hardening, flaking, then disintegrating as the working solidified. With more time, I could have brought in more elements, created a shield against smoke and pressure as well. But the order of the day was quick and dirty, and so that is what I managed. I focused for several moments more, holding the energy in place, creating a vacuum to ensure that the working could complete without interference. I maintained the flow of power from the ley line, until I was sure that the working would hold, even weak as it was.

Sealing off the working, I swept the stones from the ground and stood. I pulled my sleeve back over the cut, wincing as the shirt brushed over the wound. I’d neglected to bring gauze or bandages from home, so eager was I to get on the road. Thank goodness for black shirts. Not that I wouldn’t have to throw out this entire outfit anyways.

Antoinette had put away her phone.

“Were you successful?” I asked.

“No answer. But the phone rang, so I’m guessing it’s on.”

“And that’s good?” I asked, far from certain when it came to anything on phone etiquette.

“Maybe,” Antoinette said. “We good?” she asked, gesturing at the stones.

“As good as I can do in this short amount of time. You’ll need to keep it in contact with your skin for it to work. And it won’t protect against smoke inhalation. That we must manage mundanely.”

“I got you covered,” Antoinette said. “We just need to steal masks from the firefighters,” she said, making her way to a fire truck.

“And how are we going to do that?” I asked.

“Fighting isn’t the only thing spirits can do, you know,” she said with a wink.

It took a few minutes for Antoinette to call the spirit, negotiate a bargain at a good rate, and procure the spirit’s help in distracting the firefighters long enough for us to procure the equipment needed.

So equipped and enchanted, we made our way inside. Except now I had one hand locked around a ruby, my vision obscured by a clearly lower-grade mask, and no clearer idea where Esther was than what was given by the infrequent tugging of the agate as we made our way into the conflagration.

We entered through a side door, following the agate while moving at a brisk walk. I had the ruby and agate in one hand, the ritual knife in the other, with several more gems easily at hand in my exterior coat pocket. The ground floor was buzzing with emergency workers but didn’t seem to be aflame itself.

The agate stood on end, pulling up, so we found the nearest staircase and made it all of three steps before something screamed in an inhuman voice, sounding like the offspring of a backfiring engine and a braying donkey. The sound had come from not far up. I jumped up to the first landing and looked back to see a jumble of wood, plaster, and steel banging around the stairwell in the rough shape of a human, a bullhorn for its face. It yelled again, and my temples pounded like they were being crushed in a vise.

Antoinette yelled something, but I could not make it out, as my ears were still rebelling at being subjected to such an overpowering sound.

“Let’s find another way up!” I shouted back, turning around and pulling Antoinette out of the way as the construct hurled a meter of rebar precisely where she’d been standing.

When we were back on the ground floor, my ears attempted to equalize, and we found another stairwell at the opposite end of the “H” leg.

We made it up three flights this time before encountering another construct, this one mostly made of discarded clothes and trash. Since it was far softer in composition, we decided to merely pass it by.

I shouldered the creature aside and Antoinette slid past beside me. We ran onto the third floor.

There was smoke gathered at the ceiling, a door ablaze at the far end of the hall. A firefighter’s ax shattered the door, and smoke poured out into the hallway.

The agate pulled to the left. We made the turn, moving (of course) into thicker smoke.

I found the source of at least some of the flame: a fire elemental, living flame in the shape of a vulture. The thing spotted me and shot a gout of flame my way.

Holding out the ruby, I prayed that the working had been sufficient for the heat.

The force of the blow knocked me flat on my back, the ruby absorbing most of the power, but not all of the kinetic energy, it would seem.

The physics quandary would have to wait, since the elemental winged across the hall in our direction, its fiery beak raising to strike.

My hematite was gone, so I didn’t have a channel for earth-based magic to counter the flame. So I jumped up, holding the ruby forward again, opening up a funnel to catch the fire.

As the elemental hit, the heat passed into the ruby, but the momentum took me off my feet again. And as I slid back, the ruby slipped from my hands, leaving my coat to catch fire as the gem clattered down the hall.

Heat seared my exposed skin as I flailed to shed the coat, right myself, and get eyes on the elemental again.

I heard something high-pressure go off in a stream, and saw Antoinette hosing the elemental down with a fire extinguisher. Quite effectively.

“Huh,” I said, dumbstruck.

Emptying the extinguisher, Antoinette’s attack left the elemental diminished to one-fifth its original size. I took up my coat and dove on the elemental, smothering it, stamping it out with Antoinette’s assistance.

Shaking out my coat, I gave Antoinette my best nod of approval.

“Good thinking.”

“Thanks. Where next?”

Oh no. I’d watched the ruby fly out of my hand, but what about the agate?

“I lost the agate.” Pointing down the hallway, I said, “It has to be over here.”

We squatted low as we searched, keeping out of the smoke that was gathering at the ceiling. If the third floor was this bad, what would the others be like? And how many elementals were there?

But little of that would matter if we didn’t find the agate. We swept the hall, checked under and inside shoes left at doorways on mud flaps and shoe racks (which revealed the ruby); we checked under doormats and went all the way to the end of the hall to the stairwell door, which had its own flap that would have prevented the agate from sliding past.

This left only a few options.

“It must have bounced into someone’s apartment,” I said.

Which led to an entirely-too-lengthy digression including knocking on doors, Antoinette speaking as a “first responder” and getting people to vacate. I don’t know how they’d ignored the fire alarms, the smoke, and the screaming, but we emptied three apartments and a total of seven people before we found the agate in the third apartment, wedged underneath a bookshelf.

Having at least helped a few people escape from the fire, we continued invigorated. The agate led us up two more flights of stairs. The fifth floor was thick with smoke and heat, one entire hallway consumed by the conflagration.

Luckily, the agate led elsewhere.

Instead, we headed across the floor, then up another flight of stairs and back down one of the limbs of the building’s H shape.

“Why do I feel like this agate has no fucking clue where we’re going?” Antoinette asked.

“Because uncertainty and anxiety are magnified in times of extreme stress, compromising logical thinking. Alternatively, Esther may be on the move.”

Another fire elemental emerged from an apartment, wreathed in flame and smoke.

Antoinette produced her fire extinguisher and let the elemental have it, while I stood at her side, ruby at the ready.

Nervousness erupted into laughter as the elemental struggled, spewing flame while it flailed under the foamy assault.

Once again, we dispatched the miniaturized elemental, and moved onward, the agate pulling back the other way.

Directly into the flame-consumed hallway.

“That’s not good,” I said to Antoinette, gesturing at the agate.

And to make matters worse, three more elementals emerged from the conflagration, heading our way.

Antoinette turned and fired the extinguisher, which made not a confident spray, but an impotent gasp.

“Oh,” Antoinette said.

I raised the ruby, closed my eyes, and wished for the best as the trio breathed fire at once.