Black looked at him with grim and tearful eyes. He saw pain flash across her face.
“ Yes,” she shouted, desperate. “Yes!”
Cross' finger tensed against the trigger. He thought about Dillon, about his stupid dice and his notebook, about his sister and nephew. About that look in his eyes when he’d dangled from that stone, when he already knew that he wasn't going to make it.
This isn't about him. Not right now.
Follow and you will find.
He eased his finger off the trigger, and lowered the gun.
FIFTEEN
Lara Cole was alive, but only barely. The same couldn't be said for most of the other prisoners secured to the underbelly of the hovercraft. Only two others had survived its flight: one was maimed, while the other was a frightened child.
The vessel hovered over an open docking platform on the south end of Krul, as far from the Sleeper as they could get and still safely land. Two larger airships, both under repair, were parked on the massive roof. The sky was bruise-black, cut at the horizon by the stark and bloody red of a fresh dawn. The city around and below them was largely quiet, but occasional vessels, Razorwings and vampire sentries passed by every minute or so, forcing the small band of escapees to keep their heads down. No vampires had appeared on that roof to challenge them yet, but Kane stood near the access hatch in the floor of the rusted metal roof with a rune-covered bone sword at the ready, just in case.
Black tended to Cole and the boy, who was no older than ten and whose name they couldn't get out of him since he wouldn’t speak. Cross tended the maimed man, who'd lost most of his left leg at the knee, probably when the hovercraft had collided with the execution platform. His half-leg was bandaged but still bleeding, his injured face was covered with cloth, and his skin was clammy and feverish. Cross didn’t think he had long to live.
The rest of the prisoners on the vessel had been smashed, burned or shot in the chaos. Most of their remains couldn't even be removed from the bottom of the ship.
Cross looked back into central Krul. The formidable vampire city, home of so much pain and fear, was in ruins. The city's chains dangled loose into steel valleys of smog and caustic darkness. Numerous buildings had collapsed altogether, crushed beneath the weight of taller structures or brought down by the damage caused from crashed airships or dying Razorwings. The execution barge had brought down a half-dozen buildings when it fell, and Cross still thought he heard the echoes of that crash in the sticky wind.
He held his spirit close so as to protect her from the wild spirits of the dead. There were so many of them now they were like schools of ravenous spectral fish.
Fragments of steel and bone shards floated through the dark air like ash. The sky above Krul was filled with a churning circle of bleak cobalt clouds that were as thick as steel.
“ Are we waiting for something?” Kane said. They'd only been on the platform for a few minutes, but Cross understood Kane's anxiety. Every second counted. The Sleeper seemed to have vanished, at least for the moment. Traces of its twisted form still lingered, a scattered black rain that drifted like a curtain.
You're not gone, Cross thought to it. You're full. You ate quite a few souls today.
His stomach tightened at the thought. Vampires didn’t have souls, which meant it was the prisoners that the Sleeper had fed on. Many had died in the chaos when the city had come undone, and many more had surely died from the mere proximity of the Sleeper's life-draining presence.
“ We're okay for the moment,” Cross said. “At least from the Dra’aalthakmar.”
“ So all we need to worry about is the vampires,” Kane said with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders. “Hey, no sweat! What are we worried about?”
Kane looked at Ekko, nervously. The almost-vampire had removed herself from the others on the roof. She kept vigil on the sky with her large ebon eyes.
“ Nobody asked you, Kane,” Black said as she finished wrapping a bandage around Cole's arm. Cole had been only barely lucid since being revived. Her jaw and one side of her head had been badly bruised, and she was emaciated to the point of being skeletal. Her lips were cracked and dry, and every time she moved her hands they shook.
The same went for the boy, who seemed locked inside of himself with a delirious fear that made him weep. Cole, weak though she was, held the boy close.
“ What did you say?” Kane said to Black. He took a few steps closer to her. “Sorry, I didn't catch that. I thought maybe I heard you being rude again, you bitch.”
Black stood up. Cole put a hand out to stop her, but Black brushed it away.
“ You heard me just fine, you dumb shit,” Black said.
“ Maybe you didn't say it with enough feeling…”
“ Stop!” Cross said, loudly. “We don't have time for this crap. As soon as we’re ready, we have to get the hell out of here!”
Kane and Black both stopped, but they still looked ready to pounce.
“ We?” Kane said. “No, no, no…I think you left something back there, Cross. Like maybe your brain. There is no 'we'. Ekko and I are getting out of here. I don't give a shit what you do. I mean…look at her! Just LOOK at Ekko!!” It was the closest thing to panic Cross had seen or heard in Kane.
“ Ekko is going to Turn, you moron,” Black barked at him. “What are you going to do then?”
“ Oh, so if we come with you she’ll be all right?” Kane barked. “Are you going to cure her, Doctor Black? Oh, and if you call me a moron again you're going to be Black and blue.”
“ Try it…”
“ Stop!” Cross shouted, and he ran between and pushed them both back as they moved to grab one another. “Seriously? We DO NOT have time for this!” Cross turned to Kane. “Ekko has to come with us, Kane,” he said as calmly as he could manage. His spirit burned against his skin. She was caught up in the anger and aggression of the moment, and the effort he had to expend to hold her back sapped at his strength. “She's a part of this, whether she likes it or not. And I…I know how she feels about you, which makes you a part of this, too.”
Kane was clearly furious, and his fists balled up so tight it was a wonder they didn’t crack. But even though he fumed and gnashed his teeth, Kane kept his eyes focused, and he visibly fought to maintain control. All things considered, Cross thought that the big man did an admirable job of keeping his rage in check.
Kane turned and looked at Ekko. Pale and monstrous though she was, her expression was clearly one of sadness as she nodded assent to what Cross had suggested.
“ Fine,” Kane said, exasperated and angry. “Fine. We're with you.” He pointed and looked at Danica. “But you stay the hell away from us.”
“ Bite me,” Black laughed. “Can we go, please?”
“ Yes,” said a voice from the other end of the loading platform. “You have no idea how long overdue our exodus is.”
It was Ramsey.
Kane turned as if ready to cut the Gol down, and Cross felt the air crackle with the coursing energy of Black's spirit, who tasted of ozone and iron, fire and blood. Without an implement, there was little that Cross could do to stop Black from using her magic.
“ He's coming with us,” Cross said, as loud and as authoritative as he could. He felt cold inside. There was a hollow space where something important used to be, something that would keep him from killing Black in spite of how important he knew she was.
No. Focus.
“ Give me one reason,” Kane said, “why I shouldn't hollow out his skull and use it for a piss pot.”
Ramsey laughed.
“ Well, you're creative, at least,” he said.
