Twenty Palaces: A Prequel Page 4

  I turned to Macy and Echo. "What is going one with the four of you?"

  "Four?" Echo answered, smirking. "Payton's an athlete. He can't afford to 'risk' his body."

  Macy sniffed at the air like bloodhound. "God, what is that smell?" Then she spun and hopped onto the picnic table. "Trouble."

  Echo sprang up beside her. The gate of the batting cage banged open as Jon dropped the bat and joined them. All three stood tall, as alert as prairie dogs, staring into the parking lot. Payton emerged from the restaurant with an armful of food but as soon as he saw the others, he scattered the baskets onto the table and climbed up beside them.

  I followed their gaze and saw a tattered silhouette standing beside Jon's van. "I saw that guy outside your house."

  "That's not a guy," Echo said. "It's a woman."

  "We should call the police," Payton said. "She may be another kook with a gun."

  No one took out their phones. "Why can't people leave us alone?" Macy asked.

  I stepped in front of them. "Jon, I'll check it out. Don't worry, buddy. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

  Jon glanced me. He seemed startled and pleased.

  Macy took his arm. "We'll wait inside by the front door. You guys bring the van around." Jon tossed his keys to Echo.

  "We should call the police." Payton repeated.

  It seemed like a reasonable suggestion for seat-belt people but the others ignored him again. Echo started toward the van. "Come on."

  Jon and Macy retreated inside. Payton and I hurried after Echo.

  The stranger side-stepped away from the van. As she entered the light, I saw by the shape of her face that she was indeed a woman, though I had no idea how Echo could tell from so far away. She had red hair cut very short and wore a black fireman's jacket with reflective green and silver stripes. At first glance I thought she was homeless, but then I saw her hiking boots were expensive and looked fairly new.

  Then I came close enough to see that her neck and wrists were covered with tattoos. Beneath her big jacket, she was tiny, almost frail. It was hard to judge her age at night and at that distance, but I guessed she was around 40. Maybe she was another terminally-ill patient trying to get her hands on Jon's mysterious cure.

  She watched us approach, her posture tense; I could see we weren't going to have a friendly chat.

  Payton held out his hands. "Can I help you?" His voice was deeper than usual. The woman didn't seem intimidated.

  She opened her fireman's jacket. I froze. If she started shooting, we were too far away to rush her and too close to run.

  But she didn't take out a gun. She wore a vest covered with ribbons, all alligator-clipped to her clothes and grouped by color. She plucked a white one free and threw it at Payton.

  The clip struck his chest and bounced off. He caught it and held it up. The ribbon was decorated with the same design I'd seen on the tree outside Jon's house.

  "You aren't infected," the woman said. Her voice was small and girlish, but also strangely flat.

  She plucked another white ribbon and threw it at Echo, who snatched it out of the air. The design immediately flared, turned black, and gave off a jet of black steam and iron gray sparks. Echo threw the ribbon onto the asphalt.

  "But you are," the woman said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Payton's anger was quick. "Hey! You could have hurt her!" He stepped toward the woman and reached for her arms.

  The tiny woman grabbed him with both hands and pressed him over her head. It wasn't some kind of judo move--I'd seen plenty of those. She simply muscled Payton into the air.

  Then, in the same motion, she tossed him aside. He landed hard on the parking lot, six feet away.

  "What the hell?" I blurted out. I couldn't have picked up Payton that way but somehow she had done it. It must have been adrenaline. Must have been.

  Echo crouched low, facing off with the woman. They looked as if things were going to get deadly serious.

  Hadn't I just gotten out of prison for a fight that got out of hand? I stepped between them. "Let's calm down a minute."

  The little woman didn't like that advice. She stepped toward me and threw a punch. I slipped it easily. She threw another punch, then another, but I danced away from her. She had a hitch in her shoulder that telegraphed her swing and she kept aiming up at my jaw--she'd have had better luck going for my stomach. It was closer to her level.

  I tried not to think about what she'd done to Payton, and how it would feel if she did it to me. "Come on, lady, calm down. Calm down."

  But she kept coming, her face grim. Then I struck something with the back of my heel and fell against a lamp post.

  The corner of the woman's mouth twitched upward as she threw an overhand right.

  I ducked, barely dropping under her punch and sprawling to the side. Her fist hit the metal post with an absurdly loud thoom. She had to have broken every bone in her hand.

  A blue ribbon had been crudely sewn into the back of her coat. It had another strange, compelling design on it. Acting on an impulse I didn't quite understand, I tore it free, then scrambled away from her.

  My shadow was moving strangely. I looked up and saw the light pole toppling over.

  I rolled out of its way. The woman jumped aside, too, barely getting out from under it in time. The metal post crashed against the asphalt, scattering broken glass.

  "What the hell is going on?" I said to no one at all. None of this made sense. She couldn't have destroyed a metal lamp post with one punch, could she? She couldn't have felled it like a tree with a right cross. It had to have been damaged already. It had to be a set up.

  I didn't know what to believe, but I knew I wasn't the victim of a prank. I looked up at that strange, grim-faced little woman and repeated myself in a voice gone shamefully high with fear and confusion. "What's going on?"

  She came toward me, supremely confident and completely pitiless. "You picked the wrong friends," she said in her tiny voice.

  Payton slammed into her from the side. It was a full-body blind-side tackle worthy of an all-star college linebacker. He drove the woman into the asphalt and for a moment she disappeared beneath his huge frame. My hair stood on end at the sound of it; I thought Payton had murdered her right in front of me. Then momentum carried him over and she rolled on top of him.

  "You, too," she said, her high, flat voice still calm.

  She held Payton's hand against the ground and punched his elbow. His sleeve went flat beneath her fist. She sprang to her feet and stomped on one of his ankles. It, too, flattened beneath her.

  Payton drew a breath to scream, but the woman shrugged out of her jacket--I glimpsed a huge, complex glyph drawn into the lining--then she draped it over the big man. Payton's eyes and mouth suddenly glowed, and he fell unconscious.

  Echo slammed into the woman from behind, knocking her off her feet and smashing her head-first into the side of Jon's van. The panel buckled under the impact. Echo landed a blindingly fast punch to the woman's kidneys.

  The woman threw her elbow back, but Echo darted away. Then she pounced again, bouncing the woman off the side of the van and rocking the vehicle a second time.

  I stared at them, unable to believe what I was seeing. Jon's van looked like it had been side-swiped by a car, but the little woman seemed unhurt. Echo whipped her fists against the woman's face and neck so fast I could barely see her move. She was a blur, but the stranger was taking the punches without much effect. She covered up to defend herself, then tried to counter with a punch of her own.

  She couldn't connect. She was moving at human speed while Echo had gone far beyond that.

  I struggled to my feet, feeling dizzy. Either I was going crazy, or something terrifying, miraculous and obscene was happening right here in the parking lot. It was as if the veil had been parted just a bit, and I was seeing the freakishness and fury at the heart of the world. I hoped I was hallucinating. I hoped I was going crazy.

  The little woman threw a p
unch at Echo, missed, and struck the side-view mirror. It tore off the side of the van, spinning over my head and out into the darkness.

  Something sharp struck my cheek. I brushed at it. It was a tiny sliver of glass, beaded with blood.

  The sliver fell away. I wasn't holding the blue ribbon anymore and I wasn't sure what I'd done with it. I studied the tiny red smear on my index finger. That's real. My blood was real. The scratch on my cheek, smaller than a shaving cut, was real.

  I looked back at Echo and the strange little woman. Real. I wasn't going crazy or hallucinating. I was seeing this, and I had to come to grips with it if I was going to survive.

  Echo landed a kick on the woman's belt buckle, slamming her against the van. The woman grabbed the sliding side door and ripped it free, swinging the huge hunk of metal at Echo.

  Echo vaulted over it.

  The woman let go of the door. It flew out of her hand, skidding across the asphalt in a shower of sparks, straight for Payton's body.

  I leaped at him and rolled him out of its path. It skidded by us, grinding against the asphalt. I stopped my roll suddenly--the exposed, sputtering wires of the shattered lamp post inches from my face.

  Echo kicked at the woman's legs, knocking her to the ground. The woman pulled a red ribbon from her vest and threw it into the air. It burst into a dazzling flash of light in front of Echo's face.

  Blinded, Echo staggered back, her hands like claws over her eyes. The woman rolled into a crouch and charged.

  Echo took a deep breath through her nose, then struck out with both fists. She hit the woman full on the chest, sending her tumbling backwards.

  She struck her head against the fallen metal lamp post and came to a stop two feet from where I was lying.

  "Dammit!" she said, more out of frustration than pain. Then she did the thing I feared most. She noticed me.

  "Did you think I forgot about you?" she asked. She plucked a white ribbon and threw it at me. It struck my chest and flashed silver.

  The woman was startled. "What the hell?"

  I threw the ribbon back at her. She caught it easily, and the design flashed silver a second time.

  Then all her tattoos and ribbons glowed silver, spilling out of her sleeves and cuffs--even through the fabric of her clothes, as though she was covered with glowing tattoos. For a moment, she shone like a star and was beautiful.

  Then the light faded, and she became shabby and merciless again.

  "Wait here for me," she said, then stood and whipped her coat onto her shoulders.

  Echo rubbed her eyes and blinked her vision clear. She and the woman charged each other. The woman threw a red ribbon at Echo.

  Echo ducked below it, charging forward on all fours for a moment. The ribbon passed harmlessly over her. Then she sprang back to her feet just as it exploded in a burst of fire.

  The force of the blast lifted Echo into the air. She collided with the little woman, her clothes burning.

  They fell backwards onto the asphalt. The woman wrapped her arms around Echo. "Gotcha!" she cried.

  Echo went wild, frantically lashing out with her fists and nails at the stranger's face and neck, but the woman didn't let go. She drew back her fist and punched Echo once in the stomach.

  Echo collapsed against the asphalt, stunned. The woman sprang to her feet and shrugged off her jacket.

  I ran toward them. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but I ran anyway.

  The woman draped her jacket over Echo and pinned her arms beneath it. Lights flashed in Echo's eyes and mouth. She screamed like she was on fire.

  I charged at the tiny woman, lowering my shoulder down the way Payton had. But at the last second, I eased off--I couldn't bring myself to use my full strength against her, no matter what I'd just seen.

  She saw me coming and braced herself. I bounced off her as if she was a tractor tire and fell back on the asphalt. I moved my shoulder just to reassure myself that I could. I was useless.

  "Dammit," the woman snapped. "I'm trying to cure her."

  That made me pause. Was Echo sick? Infected, the woman had said. Was Jon infected, too?

  Echo screamed again, but the sound was strangled as a bulge appeared at the top of her throat, moving toward her mouth. She looked like a snake vomiting an egg.

  Echo's mouth opened wide and a pair of long black filaments emerged from it. They twitched and wavered like long grass in a hurricane. Then a set of needle-sharp black points appeared, pushing out of her throat. They were all connected, I suddenly realized, like a small tree branch. Another set appeared, then another, like thorn bushes growing out of her. They were each half as thick as my little finger, and they curled up out of Echo's throat and braced themselves on her lips.

  Legs. They were legs. Something was crawling out of her.

  Echo thrashed. The little woman could barely hold her still.

  "If he gave you a weapon," the woman said, "use it!"

  I didn't have a weapon. I didn't even have the ability to move.

  Something wet and the color of new phlegm pushed past Echo's teeth. It looked like a grub or a maggot, but with those strange, crooked, spiny legs. And it was as big as a cat.

  Wings uncurled from its back and began beating the air. Blood sprayed off them. Echo fell still.

  The thing turned toward me and leaped.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I fell back. The creature landed on my chest, needle-sharp legs stabbing through my jacket. It snapped at my mouth with pincers and--

  There was a tremendous flood of energy from the pocket of my jacket--it felt like I was hiding a high-powered generator in there. The worm was flung straight up into the air, and the energy subsided.

  The creature beat its wings and stopped itself falling. It glanced at the tiny woman then turned and flew away, struggling to stay aloft.

  "You let it get away?" the woman said, incredulous. "Why didn't you attack?"

  I knew I should have answered her somehow, but I couldn't tear my eyes off the retreating creature.

  It had been inside Echo. That thing had been inside her. I thought back to the batting cage--to Echo's amazing quickness and coordination. Macy had been just as gifted. And so had Jon.

  Did Jon have one of those things inside him, too?

  I reached into my pocket and felt what had given me that tremendous surge of power. I'd dropped the stolen blue ribbon in there at some point without realizing it.

  "Hey, dipshit!" the woman said to me. "Is this your first time? It can't be."

  I turned to her. The streetlights shone directly onto her face and I got my first good look at her. She was younger than I'd originally thought, probably under 25. Her plain face looked delicate. She had no makeup, no hairstyle, no jewelry that I could see.

  She had turned her attention to me and it was like being stared at by a live wire. She was full of power, and she was irresistible.

  "My first time? Yes, it was." Echo was absolutely still. Her lips were split and torn from the passage of the creature but she wasn't bleeding. Her neck was misshapen and collapsed like an empty bag. "She's--"

  "Cured," the woman said. "As cured as her kind can be. Let's get after that thing or I'll have to cure the whole damn city."

  I knelt beside Echo. She couldn't be dead. I touched her chin and her head rolled toward me. A pool of blood spilled out of her mouth onto the parking stripe. I jumped back.

  Damn.

  The strange woman grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me along. "Come on," she said. "We'll help the others later."

  Somehow she had the idea that I was on her side. I craned my neck to look at Payton. He was still breathing. I wanted to run back into the bar and call an ambulance for him, but I didn't. I kept my mouth shut and did exactly what the woman told me to do.

  She marched me toward a high fence at the edge of the lot. The woman was alert and careful, watching for the return of the creature. She didn't seem concerned with me.

  I considered cold-cocking
her, but she had already smacked her skull against the metal lamp post. If that hadn't hurt her, nothing I could manage would. I looked at the back of her head and neck, half-expecting to see a set of switches there. All she had were more tattoos.

  "It looked weak to me," she said. "I don't think it could have gotten far. Keep your eyes peeled."

  "Are you sure it went this way?"

  "Can't you see the blood?" She pointed to the parking lot. I almost said no, but then I saw it: A line of dark droplets barely visible in the light of the distant street lamps.

  "What are you, undercover?" she asked. "What have you found out?"

  "The world is scarier than I thought."

  "Funny." Her tone suggested that she hadn't laughed in years. "He didn't give you a weapon?"

  "No, he didn't." I had no idea who "he" was, so my answer was an honest one.

  "Where are the others?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Jesus. He keeps you in the dark, doesn't he?"

  "Oh, I'm in the dark, all right. What is that..." I couldn't say creature or monster. Those words were ridiculous. I was afraid that, as soon as I said the word monster aloud, I would stop believing everything I'd just seen. "... that thing?"

  "Don't know. Don't care. It has a physical form now. Mostly. Let's just kill it and move on." We reached the fence. The trail of blood continued on the other side. The worm had gone over here.

  The woman grabbed the bottom of the chain link and pulled up. The metal groaned and warped. When she was done, the fence was twisted enough to allow us to slip beneath it. The thing had gone over; I was going under.

  "Tell me what you found out so far," the woman said. "How many more were there like her?"

  That was a question I did not want to answer. Or was she testing me? She had seen me at the house earlier. She probably knew about Jon already, but not that Macy and Echo had apparently received the same cure.

  If you could call the thing in Echo's body a "cure."

  It didn't matter. I wasn't going to inform on my oldest friend, or anyone else. I was loyal.