Нора Робертс - Year One

He flew on until that black light vanished in the dark.

Arlys drew a breath to speak, but Fred put fingers on her lips. They stood in the black, in silence, for another full minute.

“I don’t know how far he can hear or see.”

“What … what was that?”

“I think a sorcerer. I don’t know. Evil. The really evil. She was alive, Arlys. I couldn’t help her. I’m not strong enough.”

Who was? Arlys wondered. What could be? “Why didn’t he see us, sense us? The symbols?”

“I think they helped. Let’s hurry, let’s go. I think they helped shield us, and you smell like…”

“Death.”

“Yeah. It’s like a shield, too.”

“Then we keep it. Oh, thank God. The tracks are going down. We’re going under the river.”

It was steep and tricky, and slowed progress.

She’d said before they’d gone in they couldn’t know who or what waited in the tunnels. And still, she hadn’t fully believed.

Now, she feared.

All that mattered was getting to the end, getting back up into air that didn’t carry the stench of death.

“We’re close. We’re close now.” Oddly, knowing that, Arlys’s fear doubled. “We’re hitting the big U-turn the tracks make before the Hoboken exit. We double back, see? And we have to start checking the platforms, looking for—”

They came out of nowhere.

She heard Fred scream as someone—or something—dragged them apart. Another grabbed Arlys from behind, lifting her off her feet.

“Bitch stinks! But she’s got a nice rack on her.”

She held on to the gun with sheer will as a hand squeezed her breast.

“Let’s get them up, strip them down!”

Arlys rammed back with an elbow, fought to kick. Then froze when she felt a knife pressed to her throat, felt blood trickle down from where it bit in.

“Rather fuck you once while you’re still breathing, but I’m not particular. How do you want it, bitch?”

Arlys closed her eyes. “I can give you a better ride while I’m breathing.”

He laughed, licked her ear. “Good choice.”

She let herself go still.

Fred screamed, a high, bright, somehow musical sound. As it echoed along with the attackers’ laughter, Arlys forced out a little laugh of her own, turned as if into the man’s arms.

And pressing the gun to his crotch, fired, fired again.

He shrieked, fell back, and the knife tore down the sleeve of her coat.

“What the fuck? I’ll kill her. Kill both of you.”

Arlys swung the gun toward the voice, but feared she’d hit Fred if she shot.

“I’m hurt, I’m hurt. She shot my fucking balls off! Kill them!”

Arlys kicked out at the hand that grabbed at her ankle, stomped on it, and filled the tunnels with another shriek.

“Run, Arlys! Just run!”

She heard the awful sound of fist striking flesh and bone, Fred’s gasping moan.

She couldn’t shoot, but she could fight. Even as she gathered herself to leap forward, the tunnel filled with light, blinding and brilliant.

Arlys whipped a hand in front of her eyes to block it out. Eyes watering from the glare, she saw Fred trying to crawl, and the man looming over her swatting at the air with his hand, with his knife. Reaching for the gun in his belt.

She didn’t think, simply fired. Again and again and again, even when he fell, even when the gun clicked on empty.

“Stop, Arlys, stop! You might hurt them. Stop, stop! It hurts me!”

Face white as bone under a gathering bruise, Fred crawled toward her. “Please help me.”

That got through. Arlys lowered the gun, rushed toward her friend. “What can I do?”

“I’m okay. I’m okay. It’s too bright. It’s too bright.”

As Fred spoke, the light softened. Sweetened, Arlys thought as she saw dozens of tiny flickers of light dancing over them.

“What … what are they?”

“Like me. But mini.” Fred slumped against Arlys. “I called them. I didn’t know I could, but I did. They came to help.”

Behind them, the first man moaned and clawed toward his knife with his uninjured hand. Arlys made herself walk over, pick up the knife, wipe her own blood from the blade.

She wanted to kill him, and the want of it sickened her. Instead she stomped, without remorse, on his good hand.

Left him shrieking while she went to his dead companion, took his knife and gun, shoved everything into the side pockets of her backpack.

“Can you walk?” she asked Fred.

“Yeah.”

“Can you run?”

“It’s my face, not my legs.”

“There may be more of this kind, or the even worse kind. We don’t have far, but—I think we should jog it. We need the flashlight.”

Fred picked it up, but stuck it in the side of her pack. “Not right now. They can stay with us.”

“Even better. Let’s go, fast as we can.”

Arlys paced herself to Fred’s shorter legs, but they kept up a good speed.

“You didn’t leave me. You said you would.”

Locking away the fear, Arlys kept her gaze straight ahead in the faerie light. “I guess you were right. I wasn’t telling the truth.”

“You saved me. You had to take a life to save me.”

Arlys kept running and thought of bright, brilliant light over dark, dark deeds.

At the Hoboken station, Arlys hauled herself up to the platform while Fred floated up.

Arlys wanted to scrub her hands, her face, strip off her ruined jacket. The sting in her arm told her the knife had done more than tear the material.

But she wanted to get aboveground again more.

She heard echoing voices, but couldn’t risk finding out if they were friend or foe. So she hurried Fred up the stairs to the street.

The dancing lights circled, then whisked away.

“They’ll come back, or others will,” Fred told her, “if we need them.”

“Best backup ever.” Then the tears scorched her throat. “I have to get somewhere, somewhere I can wash my hands—my face. My … I have to get somewhere I can fall apart for a few minutes.”

“We’ll find somewhere. Lean on me now.” Fred circled an arm around Arlys’s waist.

“You’re hurt. We need to get you some ice or frozen peas or a raw steak. Does that actually work?”

“I don’t know. Nobody ever punched me in the face before. It really hurts. It really hurts when it happens. It’s not as bad now.”

They limped along the street, and Arlys prayed they wouldn’t have to fight again. She didn’t know if she had any fight left.

They stopped in front of a shop, windows boarded, door bolted, called Cassidy’s Closet.

“I bet there’s a washroom for employees.” Fred studied the door. “Maybe some clothes. Maybe a coat you can change into.”

“It’s shut up tight. If we had some tools, maybe…”

“Faeries—experienced ones—can get into locked places. I might be able to. I just have to find it, and hold it, and…”

Fred shut her eyes, cupped her hands as if about to catch rainwater in her palms. Her wings fluttered out. She began to glow.

“Find it, inside me,” she murmured, “hold it. Bring it. Offer it. Be with me, children of light and air, of the forests and the flowers. Open locks so we may enter.”

Nearly numb to it all, Arlys heard locks and bolts click and clank and fall.

Bruised, filthy, triumphant, Fred fluttered up on her wings to circle in the air.

“I did it! It’s the first time I did it on my own!”

“You’re a wonder, Fred. An absolute wonder.” Cautiously, Arlys reached for the door. “But stay behind me, just in case.”

Arlys led with the gun, and Fred threw in some light.

No doubt the secondhand clothing store had been picked over, but it didn’t appear to have been looted or vandalized.