Chapter Thirty-Five: Wednesday, January 4, 2006, New York
A cold moon stood sentinel in the west, sinking slowly behind towering monuments of steel and glass. The air was frozen. Frigid. Caroline's breath coming out in little white puffs…the wail of a siren pierced her ears…blue and red lights flashed below…far below…the street blurred…sharpened. She leapt from the rooftop, hit the next with a hard thud, heart pounding in her ears, Caroline ran, leapt again…ran…jumped…blood rushed through her veins, every scent of the city assaulted her nose. The food truck…coffee…grease…spices…bread baking…diesel fumes…..
Tires rumbled through the slush. Someone shouted something incomprehensible. Horns blared, a discordant cadence.
She wove her way down fire escapes, through alleyways, back up again. A roar of fury escaped her throat, a foreign sound that seemed to come from somewhere far away…somewhere deep within. Anger roiled through her blood, burned in the marrow of her bones, and the pit of her stomach.
It engulfed her soul.
She ran on, legs pumping, muscles burning, anger unabated until at last, she slowed. Stopped. She was higher up than she'd ever been before. Far below a swath of green…the park.
A scent acrid and familiar reached her nose and Caroline snarled at the interloper.
…
Jake rose slowly. Cautiously. He gave her a moment to recognize him because he remembered his own "period of darkness" as Father and Grandfather called it. The confusion. The tumult. The burning, every sense inflamed. Every sight, every sound…. Everyone was an enemy, every movement a threat. He took a slow, careful step towards his sister. She was older than he'd been when it hit him, but a little younger than Father had been when the darkness took him for the first time.
Caroline snarled a second time. Physically, she was the same as she'd always been—yet she'd transformed into a thing of nightmares, reminding him entirely too much of Kate, just then.
"You're no good to anyone like this," Jake told her.
"What are you doing here?" she rasped, voice hoarse.
"It's where we both needed to be," he told her. He'd felt it, the same way he believed she must have. Something was wrong. Something causing his senses to sharpen to a razor's edge of awareness. Whether what he felt was his own or Caroline's rage or their father's fear, he couldn't be sure. He just knew where he needed to be.
He knew Elliot was in danger.
More than that, he knew he would find Caroline on the roof of Elliot's building.
….
"Kyle!"
Sleep clung hard to Kyle McCarty's body—at least until someone shook his arm so violently, he was nearly pushed out of bed.
"Kyle!" Any repeated. "Wake up!"
" I'm awake," he grumbled, trying to piece together why his cousin was awake and dressed, why she was holding Nicole, his two-year old daughter. Okay, that might not be so strange, even if Amy didn't usually wake him up when Nicole needed something, but Nicole was bundled up, like they were going somewhere only….Kyle cast a bleary-eyed glance at the clock. "It's five am." In point of fact, it was only 4:50, which meant he'd gotten not quite two hours of sleep.
"Mom?" Lauren poked her head into Kyle's bedroom.
Or…it wasn't exactly his bedroom, no matter how many times Amy and Elliot told him he didn't have to move out any time soon. And really, it wasn't as if Burch lacked space. His penthouse was easily twice the size of Aunt Max's place in Hartford. The entire arrangement was weird. Amy and Elliot spent most weeks in Hartford, cramped into Aunt Max's place, but came back to Burch's Manhattan penthouse on the weekends—except for this week because it was some kind of holiday or something.
Kyle had no idea.
The entire arrangement was just weird.
Not that Kyle minded living in the lap of luxury or having a job practicing medicine—albeit in a clinic that was the opposite of luxury. He wouldn't have either if it weren't for Burch, who bankrolled the clinic and didn't mind putting him and Nicole up in his guest room.
And why was Lauren fully dressed?
"What's going on?" Kyle finally registered the frightened look on Amy's face.
"You need to get up. We have get somewhere…somewhere safe."
"What are you—holy mother of God!" Kyle sat straight up in bed as a new figure came into the bedroom. It…he…was…wasn't human. Wasn't Tenctonese, either.
"I am sorry. I did not mean to alarm you." It's…his…voice was like soft velvet. "Amy, we must hurry. Caroline is here. She was…pulled, by the same instinct that drew me here. I do not think it is a coincidence."
"Am I dreaming this?" Kyle asked, unable to wrap his head around that inhuman face, the mane of hair, the long cloak…the clawed hands that drew back the hood. He couldn't help but inch away—but why wasn't Lauren afraid of whoever or whatever that thing was?
"You're not dreaming. Kyle," Amy told him. "This is Vincent. Cathy's husband and the best mine at my wedding."
Kyle blinked. "I guess this explains why no one was invited." He looked back to his cousin. "Amy what's going on?"
" I'll explain on the way," she told him. "Right now, you just have to get up and get dressed."
"On the way where?" he asked, even as he started to get out of bed.
Lauren looked up at the monstrous stranger. Vincent. Cathy's husband. Elliot's best man. "You don't really think they'll come after Elliot, do you?" Lauren asked.
He knelt down to her level—and a bullet shattered the window and pierced the wall opposite where he'd been standing only a fraction of second before.
…..
Caroline…felt it…eyes on her…on Jake…then glass shattered below them, an explosion of shards as the bullet ruptured the tempered pane. She didn't wait for her brother; she zeroed in on the shooter, calculated the best—the only—route over, and dropped off the rooftop so she could hit the balcony on below. From there, she bolted—climbing, leaping, scrambling until she got to the alleyway, a narrow passage she could jump with ease.
Behind her Jake cursed, struggling to keep up.
….
Lauren screamed and dove into Vincent's chest.
Amy shrieked and both she and Kyle hit the floor, Amy hunkered over Nicole who started wailing.
"Amy! Lauren!" Elliot dashed into the room and a second bullet pierced the wall.
Vincent pulled him down and sheltered both he and Lauren while Kyle scrambled to pull his jeans on over the boxers he'd been sleeping in. He knew about the supposedly random attack on Elliot and Amy last year, but "Would one of you tell me what's going on?"
Vincent had managed to move Lauren and Elliot out of sight of the windows; Amy was hunkered down near them, still holding a petrified Nicole tight against her chest.
"I'm afraid it's one of those long stories," Amy told him. "Vincent…."
Kyle looked over. There was blood on his chest. He seemed unhurt. So did Lauren, but—
"Elliot?" Amy reached for her husband. "Elliot!" she and Lauren both sobbed out his name.
An ugly read stain had spread across the front of Elliot's shirt; he was unconscious, but hopefully not—
"He is alive," Vincent told them calmly, still cradling Elliot in one arm, even before Kyle could crawl over to check Burch's pulse.
Kyle had to wonder if Vincent wasn't feigning calm in the face of Amy's near-hysterical sobbing, begging Elliot not to die on her, begging Kyle not to let him die. Lauren wasn't fairing much better, clinging onto Vincent as if…as if he wasn't the monster.
The monster was the probably perfectly ordinary human being out there somewhere with a gun.
"Lay him down," he told Vincent.
Vincent, Cathy's husband, the father of her children….
He decided to leave the thinking for later—including the part about how Vincent seemed to understand what Kyle needed and ripping open Elliot's shirt with startling ease.
Yeah, definitely better off leaving the thinking for later.
Elliot had been hit in the shoulder; a couple of inches in either direction and he would probably be dead already. "We need to get pressure on both sides to stop the bleeding." He pulled off his shirt. Vincent ripped away a piece of Elliot's shirt and together, they stemmed the flow of blood. It wasn't going to be good enough. "We have to get him to the hospital." Or he's not going to make it…. He didn't say it out loud, but he suspected Amy realized.
"That may be easier said than done," said a new voice. A big black bird flew in through the open window at the same time the girl stepped out of the shadows. She was a thing born of night and nightmares. The bird banked sharply and came around to settle on her shoulder. The girl's gaze fell on Elliot if only for a moment—but in that moment anguish burned in her eyes. She turned her gaze to Vincent. "The power's been cut. The whole building is out."
"My cell," Amy stammered. "It's in my purse." She was already scrambling for the living room.
Lauren, tears streaming down her cheeks, looked from Vincent to the new arrival and then back again. "How are we going to get out of here?"
"Do you trust me?" the dark girl asked.
Lauren nodded; Kyle didn't share the sentiment, but he wasn't sure how many options were left.
"Then trust me to get you out of here. All of you." Her gaze fell to Elliot again, and the crow took off from her shoulder, back out the window.
…
The smell of blood drew Caroline forward; it caused her blood to pulse so loudly in her ears nearly every other sound was drown out. She hoisted herself up over the ledge of the building across from Elliot's—and saw her quarry at last.
Tall and lithe, clad head to toe in black, a high-powered riffle still sitting on its stand by the far ledge. A crossbow bolt sticking from their upper arm. He…she…cursed loudly as she pulled it out. The flow of blood increased, and Caroline became acutely aware of the other woman's pulse, fast and steady.
Jake hauled himself up behind Caroline, just as Caroline spotted Jamie, half-hidden in the shadows, the lightening eastern sky behind her. If it weren't for her, Caroline was sure Elliot or her father would be dead. Even so, and even from so far away, she felt Elliot's life draining away, felt her father's anguish, Amy's fear.
"So." The assassin's gaze flicked from Caroline and Jake then to Jamie, who stepped out of the shadows. "They sent a woman and a little girl? Is this Vincent so afraid of me that he won't face me himself?"
Jamie smirked right back. "I dunno. I seem to have slowed you down plenty."
"It doesn't matter," the assassin said. "Elliot Burch is still a dead man—and you're next." She pulled a knife from her belt.
Caroline snarled, the pain of loss fueling her rage. The woman wasn't lying. Elliot was dying. Simon…for all she knew he was dying, too. She didn't feel him anymore, couldn't….she had no sense of him. She screamed and lunged forward, breaking easily free of Jake's attempt to hold her back.
The knife sliced through her sweater, her skin, cut deep into the muscle of her arm…her side. Blood flowed hot and wet even if adrenaline kept her from fully feeling the pain. Caroline lunged again, instinct taking over. Nails that had always been stronger than so-called normal…human…clawed through fabric, ripped deep into muscles. The assailant was taller than Caroline, but Caroline had been squabbling with her brothers for years; she got under the woman, got the advantage, tumbled her down to the ground, forced the mask off her face…. And blinked, startled despite her rage. It wasn't a woman.
It was a girl.
She looked hardly older than Caroline.
And she looked familiar.
"That's right," she sneered, using Caroline's startlement to her advantage to roll Caroline over, pin her between her body and the hard ground. She pushed the knife to Caroline's throat. "I was three years old when your father killed my father!" she spat.
"He's not dead." Caroline pushed her off, despite the sudden fiery throbbing of her wounds.
Gabriel. Her father was Gabriel.
"He might as well be!" The other came at her again, but Caroline anticipated her strike this time, and knocked the knife from her hands. She snatched a small pistol from an ankle holster and pointed it straight at Caroline's face.
"No!" Jake and their father roared at once—but there was nothing they could do. The woman—the girl—was only a few feet from Caroline. Even if Jamie could get in a shot….
"Stalemate," the assassin said, without looking up or wavering. "Or maybe I should say check mate, because even if I die, I'm taking your daughter and your best friend with me." She inched closer to Caroline. "Your family took everything from me. My legacy. My birthright."
"That was me," Jake said calmly.
Their father breathed out his name, but Jake ignored it.
"I was the baby your father stole. I'm the one he wanted. He rejected you for me! Was it because he wanted a son instead of a daughter?" he taunted.
The girl swung her gun at Jake—and gasped at the sight of Vincent standing there behind him.
Caroline lunged just as the gun went off. Two loud pops rang in her ears. Darkness clouded her vision…feathers. The crow raked his claws across the assassin's face, causing her to howl in rage. She fired blindly and pain blazed through Caroline's upper arm. At the same time, Jamie lifted her crossbow and loosed a bolt that hit the woman square in the chest.
She fell over backwards, lifeless.
Jake ran to her, their father on his heels—but both came up short before reaching her, waiting for Caroline to nod. Pain was dulling the smoldering rage. "Uncle Elliot?" she asked.
"It is not good," Father told her the truth.
Caroline buried her face in his chest, sobbing. For the first time in her life, his strong arms weren't enough to comfort her pain.