Нора Робертс - Year One

Her companion might have wings and better hearing than a schnauzer, but Fred still struck Arlys as too cheerful to be cautious.

“Listen, we don’t know who or what might be down here. In the terminal, in the tunnels. We’ve got a long hike, and one without an easy escape route if we need one. I’ve got a gun, but I’ve never actually shot anything.”

“I really don’t think you should.”

The scream came again, and the terror in it rolled down Arlys’s spine.

“If we have to defend ourselves, we’re going to. We’re going to walk as fast as we can, as safely as we can, and you can keep those insanely good ears of yours peeled.”

“I can see really well in the dark, too.”

“Another plus. We stick together, just like we did on the way here.”

Arlys took out her flashlight, aimed it down the steps. She looked over—they stood at the corner of Macy’s.

She thought, There will never be another holiday parade, never another sale.

There will never be another miracle on this or any other street.

“Let’s go.”

She had to steel her own nerves to walk down and down. Every step had her heart thudding faster, louder.

What was she doing here? What was any sane person doing here?

“Do you hear anything?” she whispered to Fred.

“I don’t hear a thing. We’re good.”

They crossed in the dark, following the single beam of light, boosted themselves over the turnstiles.

“I always wanted to do that.” Fred’s voice, even lowered, echoed. “For the fun, not for the not paying.”

Arlys put her finger to her lips, playing the light everywhere, fearing she’d see more dead bodies littering the terminal, the tracks.

Or worse, live ones poised to attack.

Using the flashlight, she followed the signs for the PATH to Hoboken.

She scanned the platform, the tracks, the platform across the tracks. Her heartbeat leveled a bit—until she had to face the fact they needed to go down farther and into the tunnels.

No turning back, she thought. Once they started down the—ha-ha— path , there’d be no turning back.

“This is it.” She sat, let herself drop down. Even with her knees soft, the descent stole a little of her breath.

Fred sprouted her wings and floated down like a feather.

“I might be able to fly with you for short distances. I haven’t tried it with a person yet,” Fred admitted. “But I’ve taken a few dogs that way to this shelter we started. I wish I could’ve gone by first, gotten one to take with us.”

Since one of Arlys’s fears was running into a family pet gone feral, like the ones gnawing bodies on the street, she was fine without a dog.

“You know about the third rail?”

“Arlys, I might be a pretty new faerie, but I’m twenty-one, not two. You have to stop worrying so much.”

“I feel responsible.”

“For doing the right thing? You are. I was really proud of what you did. It’s when I knew, for sure, I was going with you. There’ve been some rumblings.”

“Rumblings?”

“We’re—the people like me, the magickal people—we’re not very organized yet. A lot of us are just figuring out what we are. And some, when they figure it out, go a little nuts, or they go full evil. So we’ve mostly been trying to make those safe zones and help people, help the dogs and cats and other pets that got left behind or let loose when their owners got sick. But we’ve had a few working scrying mirrors or crystals, and have been trying other spells, to find out what’s really going on.”

Arlys had no idea what a scrying mirror was. “Crystals? Like a fortune-teller at a carnival?”

“Some of them probably had latent power, but anyway, yeah, like that—and other ways. We figured out it was worse than what they were telling us, but it’s hard to say how much worse, since there are a lot of conflicting reports, you know? Lots of chatter. But we figured worse and going to get even more worse. That’s why we’ve been trying to help people get out when we can. And when you told everybody everything you knew tonight, I knew I’d help you.”

She stopped, tapped Arlys’s arm. Arlys switched off her light, and let Fred guide her through the dark until her back was pressed to cold tiles.

She didn’t speak, didn’t ask, but put her hand on the butt of the gun.

She heard the leading edge of male laughter, with enough mean in it to tell her they wouldn’t be friendly.

“Did you see that asshole squirm!”

She caught the light now—two beams cutting through the dark, growing closer, brighter.

Now and again they sliced over the walls. If they swept over her or Fred, could she use the gun? Could she aim and shoot another human being?

“Pissed himself. Fucker pissed himself!”

“Don’t see why we can’t hunt another down here. Plenty of asshole fuckers in the tunnel.”

“Come on, most of those are crazy. It’s more fun to make them crazy, then kill the fuckers. Let’s get a woman this time, and not one of the hags down here. We do her a couple times, then nail her on the tracks, do her again before we gut her.”

“You’re a sick bastard.”

More laughter. She heard their boots ring on the ground. Saw their silhouettes behind the beams of light.

Could they see hers?

“Let’s get two. I don’t want your sloppy seconds.”

A beam skimmed the wall an inch from her face; her hand tightened on the butt of the gun.

If they hadn’t been so busy laughing about their plans to rape, torture, and kill, they would have seen her.

They walked on, close enough she could have reached out and touched them. Continued along the tracks, arguing about the best hunting ground.

Beside Arlys, Fred quivered. “I don’t know enough to stop them,” she whispered. “I don’t have enough yet to know how. I hope someone does. They can’t hear us now, or see the light.”

Trusting her, Arlys turned on the flashlight.

She counted her paces. Fifty. A hundred. A hundred and fifty.

This time Fred gripped her arm, fingers digging hard. “Do you smell that?”

“I smell musk and urine and beer puke.”

“Blood. A lot of blood, and … death. But no sound, no movement.”

In another twenty paces, Arlys smelled it. She knew the scent as it had streaked over her face, even into her hair, from Bob Barrett.

Then her light picked up something on the tracks. Beside her Fred let out a muffled sob, but kept going.

A body, Arlys realized as they came closer. A body nailed to the ground through his hands and feet. His mouth hung slack in a battered face, showed broken teeth. And all the blood that had spilled out of him when they’d sliced him across the belly formed a gleaming, dark pool.

When Fred lowered to her knees, Arlys swallowed down her rising gorge, tugged at her.

“We have to go. He’s gone, Fred. You can’t do anything for him.”

“I can. I can say a prayer his soul finds peace. I can do that for him.”

Arlys straightened, stood by—now with the gun in her hand.

She didn’t have to ask herself if she could aim it or fire it at another human being, not when she looked at what human beings had done to a boy who looked barely twenty.

Damn right she could.

CHAPTER NINE

Fred rose, letting out a breath that shuddered with tears.

“He was younger than me.”

“I wish—” Arlys cut herself off. Wishing solved nothing. “We have to keep going.”

“I know, and I know it doesn’t matter to him now, but I wish we didn’t have to leave him alone here, too. That’s what you were going to say.”

“But we have to. You take the flashlight.” Arlys intended to keep the gun in her hand now. “There are probably more like those two. If you sense anything, we hide. If hiding doesn’t work, we run. If running doesn’t work, we fight.”