“Come home!” called Grandmother. “Calliope deMinuit! Come home!”
“Callie, no!” Jack grabbed for my hand.
But Jack wasn’t strong enough. I was slogging forward, as helpless against the pull of my own name as he had been against the pull of the dance music.
The touch of Jack’s hand slipped away. He was gone, run off. Again. He’d left me alone to stumble through the stinking smoke and hot ash toward the fire. The little imps in evening dress circled around my knees, cheering. I looked up and saw my grandparents silhouetted against the flames, their arms out in welcome. A deep hole filled with the swirling colors of madness opened behind them.
WHAM!
I was sprawled on my belly. Jack rolled off me before I knew what had hit me, and he stuffed something in my hands. I stared.
It was a frying pan. A big black cast-iron frying pan. Over his shoulder I saw the lunch counter with its stove top, and the human fry cook hollering and leaping over the counter.
“Calliope deMinuit!” called Grandmother again.
But this time, the drag was gone. Jack looked down at me and grinned.
“Let’s go!” he said.
I was on my feet and we ran, fast and crazy, away from the fry cook and my grandparents and everything. We were going toward the gate. I didn’t need my magic to tell me. Jack always knew the right way to go.
The shot exploded past my ear without warning.
I screamed, Jack screamed, and we both faltered and skidded sideways around the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Bull Morgan walked out of the smoke. And he wasn’t alone. A slim male silhouette walked beside him.
“There!” said Bull Morgan, who despite everything was a human being and couldn’t be fooled by iron or steel. He pointed at us with his revolver.
“Thou good and faithful servant!” laughed the man at his side. No. Not a man. I knew the voice now. I’d heard it calling to Bull Morgan, raising him up and driving him back down into the dust. But I’d also heard it singing “St. James Infirmary Blues” in a deserted honky-tonk, and trying to talk me into believing lies about who my father was.
It hadn’t been the Seelie who had sent Morgan after us. It had been my uncle, my father’s younger brother, the one who would have been the heir to the Midnight Throne if it wasn’t for me being born. The one who told me straight-out that I was the heir, as long as I drew breath.
“You’re slow, Callie deMinuit.” Uncle Lorcan smiled his big white smile down at me. “But then, so was your papa.” He turned calmly to Bull Morgan. “Shoot them. We’ll toss them into the fire afterward.”
“You planned this. You wanted me to start the fire so you could kill me and make it look like an accident.”
He bowed. “Their Majesties would be most upset if I spilled family blood, even bastard blood. But a tragic accident, precipitated by your unwise passion for this little mortal boy… ah, well. Shoot them,” he said again to Morgan.
“You left Shimmy to die,” I croaked. “You never told her she was helping to get me killed.”
“Poor Shimmy.” He shook his head, but his smile never once wavered. “She was so anxious to curry the favor of the court. As if any half-and-half who wasn’t the prophecy girl could ever find welcome here. Yes, I used her, and she was glad to be used.”
“She never let me down.”
“Never, pathetic creature.”
“She’s behind you!”
He jerked around. I whacked him hard with my frying pan in the small of the back. Jack tackled Bull Morgan, and they rolled over and over on the boardwalk. The ground shook underneath us. The boardwalk was made of wood, and it was still burning. There was a shot. The frying pan in my hands shuddered, and something smacked against my head so hard I staggered. Something went squelch. Now I couldn’t see straight. Salt stung my eyes, and all the strength left my hands, so I had to drop the frying pan.
“Callie!” Jack grabbed my hand and dragged me after him. “You gotta wish us outta here, Callie!”
But I couldn’t see. There was something dark getting into my eyes. My ears rang louder than the fire alarms. My head was burning, and I wondered if I’d caught fire.
“Stop!” bawled Morgan. “Stop in the name of the law!”
“ ‘The Midnight Special,’ Callie!” cried Jack. “Sing it!”
I wanted to get away. I wanted to get Jack away. I felt my name being called, and I had no iron to get in the way of that summons. I opened my mouth, but I could only whisper:
My head was spinning. I couldn’t hold my thoughts together. All the other train songs rattled around in my frightened skull: “Rock Island Line,” “This Train,” “Little Black Train.” All the words all mixed up in the wishes and commands and fire.
And I didn’t care. I didn’t care which train, which gate or door we could find. I had to get out of there. I had to get Jack out of there. I had to. There was no one else, not with the smoke and the fire and my treacherous family all behind us.
“I got yer mammy!” said Morgan.
I skidded to a stop and turned my head. Too slow, too late. Morgan didn’t have hold of Shimmy, but my hesitation was just enough, and his big, soft, cold hands clamped around my waist, lifting me high. Jack hollered and swore, and Morgan kicked him aside. He started to squeeze hard, squeeze all the air out of me.
“Die! Die, you stupid pickaninny brat! Gonna kill you dead like you killed me!”
“No!” cried Jack. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t see.
A new note cut across the roar of fire and fear. Louder than any alarm bell, longer than any note from any horn. New light fell across us, blinding white and strong enough to cut through any smoke. Morgan hollered, and his killing grip around my middle let loose. I dropped to the boards, and Jack was on his knees next to me, pulling me up and wrapping his arms around me.
A clanging and a chugging filled the world, followed by the squeal of brakes and the hiss of steam. I tried to look up, but the new light was so strong, I could only squint.
There on the edge of the boardwalk stood a railroad engine. It was shining black iron, bigger than anything else in the whole world. Clouds of steam wreathed around it, and the brass ringing of its bell drowned out all the other noises.
I stared. Jack stared. Morgan hollered and fell back. The gun in his hand went off, and the bullet pinged off the side of that big black engine and did no harm whatsoever.
The engine pulled a string of passenger cars, just as black, with the shades pulled down so no light came from the windows. The door on the first car swung open smoothly, and a man in a white porter’s jacket and a shiny billed cap walked down the stairs. He was treetop-tall and had skin as black as the Midnight Throne. He saw me and Jack huddled on the ground gawping up at him, and folded his arms. But it wasn’t us he was frowning at.
“I been waitin’ on you, Samuel Morgan.” His big black hand clamped around Morgan’s shoulder and lifted him up off the ground. “You just about done throwed off my whole schedule.”
26
