‘Okay,’ Chloe murmured. She really couldn’t say much else; she knew that she was the most well-protected of any of them in this suit, but that certainly didn’t make the thought of going into battle any easier. The first two times she’d been caught up in a firefight, it had happened too quickly and spontaneously for her to do anything but react and survive. This time, though, the violence was premeditated, and it had a timed countdown attached to it. She felt like she was waiting for an appointment to undergo surgery without anaesthetic.
‘You good now, kid?’
Chloe waited a few moments before answering, tracing an invisible pattern on the gleaming black floor with the toe of her boot before speaking.
‘Why do we have to do it like this?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I get why we have to do this, as … as horrible and scary as it is. But why the guns and grenades and stuff? Couldn’t you guys just use your magic, whatever that weird shit you did back in the mountains was?’
‘No Chloe, we can’t,’ Njinga answered gently. ‘What we did back there, when the Huntsmen attacked, we were only able to do because of where we were. All a’ us, like I told you before, we all got different abilities, us beastwalkers. Many a’ us don’t have no special abilities at all, an’ you don’t just automatically get stuff like that when you become one a’ us; if you have the base ability for a gift, as we call ‘em, you gotta study an’ train that gift for many years. I’m talkin’ not just decades here, but centuries, an’ even then there are restrictions about where you can use it.’
‘Why would your abilities be restricted based on where you were? I mean, for a while I was really into playing bass guitar, and I got real good. I could play real well anywhere; it didn’t matter if I was at home in my apartment or in Central Park or on the subway or wherever.’
‘Maybe I’m using the wrong word to explain what I mean then,’ Njinga said. ‘Because it ain’t like playin’ an instrument. Actually, come to think a’ it, yeah it kinda is, in a way. Did you ever get to play your bass guitar in a live setting?’
‘I played in a band for a year or two, yeah. We didn’t really play many shows, though, just like, one or two.’
‘All right, well you did at least play in front of people once then huh? So, when you played in front of a crowd, did it feel different to when you were jammin’ at home on your own?’
‘Well yeah, it was literally a night and day difference,’ Chloe answered. ‘I mean, at home I could play so much better, up to a point … but then when I played in front of people the first time, I was almost like, crippled with nerves and anxiety. For the first few songs I could hardly play at all and I kept missing notes or playing the wrong notes. But the crowd, they really liked us and got into the music, and when that happened, like, I totally got over my stage fright, and when people were dancing and stuff, it was like, like me and the other guys in the band were literally feeding off their energy, and we started playing better than we ever had, like, on a whole ‘nother level.’
Inside the inky shadows of her hood, Njinga cracked a smile.
‘Then you know exactly what it’s like to tap into, channel and redirect energy. It’s a very minor, rudimentary form a’ it, what you an’ your band did, but it’s the same principle.’
‘But you guys didn’t have a crowd there in the mountains.’
‘We don’t need crowds, girl. What we need is the energy of complex interconnected ecosystems; the older the better. In the mountains where the cabin was, we were in our element: an ancient forest, filled with the potent energy of nature. We tapped into that power, which is immense in places like that, an’ channelled an’ redirected it.’
‘Why can’t you do that here?’
‘Look around you kid. You saw this city, an’ you can see the inside a’ this dump. Everything is dead here; concrete, asphalt, steel, plastic, rubber, drywall … Any trees nearby are weak an’ stunted, an’ they ain’t barely got any ecosystems around ‘em. The soil they’re growin’ in is almost barren, an’ only propped up with chemical fertilisers. It’s only got a fraction a’ the microorganisms that make up an old, truly complex ecosystem. There ain’t no animals nearby but rats, roaches, a few pigeons an’ sparrows, an’ some stray cats an’ dogs. We could probably draw on a little of their life energy, but they ain’t part of a complex whole, really, not like the animals a’ the forest. They’re more like people, tryin’ to scavenge a livin’ off this dead place. An’ besides, those trees an’ creatures are all outside. We’re in here, with walls all around us, an’ very little in the way of life.’
‘I guess I get what you’re saying … but what about the thousands of people in here? Couldn’t you use their energy?’
Njinga chuckled and shook her head.
‘Wrong kinda energy, kid. These people may as well be made of bricks, plastic an’ concrete for all the life energy they can give us.’
‘But the day I saw William fight that guy who turned into a rhino, he did something that was like, like magic.
