Marc Zicree - Angelfire

“I don’t know what it means,” says Cal. “But we’re almost to Dearborn. Let’s focus. Let’s get this done, okay?”

I don’t know which one of us sees it first. Irrelevant, I suppose. I only know that when we turn the corner onto Dearborn and walk into the shadow of the Chicago Media Building, a great, black, oily wave of horror breaks over me. Time, light, reality, life, all stop and I am nailed to the sidewalk by the weight of sheer terror.

This is hell , I think. We have turned the corner into hell .

The Tower stands fifty stories tall, slick and gleaming, beneath a canopy of dark, inescapable radiance. We’ve all been here in our worst nightmares. We have visited this spot in a landscape we each imagined, prayed, hoped, was entirely internal.

I’m aware of Magritte clinging to me, warmth in a suddenly frozen world. Her sobs fill up my universe for a stunned instant, then other, alien voices come screaming through my head like a gale-force wind. They tear at me- at us. They are at once sweet and sad and hungry.

And familiar.

Magritte twists in my arms. “Make them stop! Oh, God, Goldie, make them stop !”

But I can’t. I’ve been ambushed-with no chance to regroup.

It’s Enid who makes them stop, rolling homemade, heartfelt melody off of his tongue, weaving a field of sound. The alien voices fall silent, but only for a moment, then they are back to batter at Enid’s shield.

I hide my eyes from the Tower, afraid that if I look at it, it will devour me from the inside out. I look anywhere else. At Magritte, burrowed tight to my side.

At Colleen, who herds us back into the shadowy canyon that is Randolph Street.

Doc’s face is a Siberian wasteland, and his eyes are windows into a variety of death I have never seen, for all my time on the street.

Cal, blank-faced and stoic, pulls us along the sidewalk, urging Enid to sing, to keep singing . And Enid sings, the tracks of tears gleaming wetly on his dark cheeks. I don’t think they’re for the Tower, or even for what it represents. They are for those he can’t see, but who will be touched by his music in ways he never intended.

It is some time before it sinks in that Howard Russo is gone.

COLLEEN

Okay, easy would’ve been too much to ask, I suppose. But I was surprised to find that a tiny piece of Pollyanna deep down in my soul was stunned that we hadn’t been able to just march in, have our lawyer talk to their lawyers, and march out again.

The postshock aura was a bitch; tiny ice crystals jogged and reeled in my eyes and ears and blood. But that burned off fast, leaving nothing but pure mad. The fact that there was no one to aim it at only made me madder.

Anger was safe. Angry, I wasn’t aware of the Tower looming behind us, playing out its miles of marionette string. Hell, I don’t know which was worse, seeing it or not seeing it. I may be dense as a post, but even I could feel something . Something more than just surprise that the Source had thrown us another curve, another something-we’d-never-seen-before-a tweaked building , for godsake.

Rock, scissors, paper. Anger cuts fear. Habit breaks anger. I swung into survival mode, checking resources and escape routes, assessing damage. Doc, Goldie, and Magritte were a mess. Enid was stone cold petrified. Cal was grim, purposeful, in control. He kept us moving, parting the sidewalk traffic with a look, making a hole through which I could drive our shell-shocked herd.

Once out of sight of the Tower, I caught up with him and paced him. “Was that it? Was that the Source?”

He shook his head, kept walking hard. His face was like stone. “I don’t know.”

“Goldie-”

“Later. Now, we need to get out of here.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“Russo’s. We need to regroup.”

I nodded, looked around. “Russo’s gone, the feckless little shit.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

I shut up and took point. I was still in the lead when we crossed the intersection of Washington and Wells, which meant I was first to confront the cotton candy wall. It looked different than Goldie described it-less like cotton candy and more like one of those computer-generated nebulas I’ve seen in science fiction movies.

I hesitated, glancing around to see if any natives were watching, and saw a familiar face. The Suit. And he’d brought friends. My senses came on line with a crackle of electricity; my spine felt as if it had grown rebar. They were armed-baseball bats, chains, knives. They were coming down Washington behind us, leaving very little room for friendly interpretation of their intentions. Traffic parted in front of them, people scurrying to get out of their way.

Cal had seen them, too. He’d drawn his sword and slowed up, putting himself in our rear guard.

I gauged the distance to the wall of red ick and plunged at it, hearing the others close on my heels. It was like running into a blizzard of electric red glitter. A wave of intense, stinging heat kissed my face. Surprised, I sucked in a breath of air and inhaled fire.

I twisted around and flung myself back toward the others, choking and gesturing for them to go anywhere but where I’d just been.

“This way!” Enid shouted, and darted up Wells to the right, into the pedestrian traffic.

The rest of us followed, sucking up under the eaves of the buildings. We had the advantage of a half a block of distance between our attackers and us and two guides who knew the neighborhood. We had the disadvantage of me. I felt as if I’d snorted fireworks; my lungs were still burning and my skin itched like a sonofabitch. They say your skin itches when you change… Nausea washed over me, but I plowed on, keeping pace with the others.

Enid and Magritte took point now, plowing and dodging through the people on the street, making a hole for the rest of us to slip through.

A shadow passed over us, pulling my eyes upward. Overhead, the red haze eddied as if in the wake of a large bird. I shivered and prayed it wasn’t dragons. That’d be about all we needed.

Ahead of me, Cal broke stride. “Who the hell is that?”

I faced front. Someone had appeared out of an alley in front of Enid. In the next second the guy grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him into the alley. Goldie and Magritte shot around the corner after him.

Adrenaline pumping, I hauled my crossbow out from under my jacket and bolted for the alley. When I cleared the corner with Doc and Cal hard on my heels, our guys were nowhere in sight. The stranger was crouched at mid-alley next to a large Dumpster. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and shades, and for a moment I thought it was Howard, until I realized that this was a full-scale model. He seemed to be unarmed.

He stood and waved us on. “C’mon, boys ’n’ girls!” His voice echoed strangely off the walls and rattled the fire escapes. “We don’t got time for proper intros.”

Good point. It was either him or a bunch of guys with baseball bats and chains. I lowered my crossbow and pounded down the alley, trying not to notice that my legs felt like licorice whips.

When I reached him, Mystery Man snagged me by the shoulder, wheeled me around the edge of the Dumpster, and shoved me down into a window well. Before I could catch my balance, someone grabbed me from below and pulled me into a cold, dark, musty hole. I opened my mouth to squawk, but a cool blue light flared practically in my face. It was balanced in Goldie’s palm. He lifted a finger to his lips. A second later Doc and Cal poured themselves down through the window well, followed by the Mystery Man. The window casement slammed shut behind them.

“This way.” Our guide crossed the basement in a few strides. We followed without question.