Unclean Spirits Part 25

It didn't speak. That time was over. We circled each other, waiting for a break, a moment. A chance. I thought I saw a tremble in the knee I'd kicked. I lunged forward, but it had antic.i.p.ated the move. It stepped into the attack, taking the momentum on its arm, grabbing the front of my shirt and twisting. I lost contact with the ground, flew through the air out of control. I reached down with one hand, willing myself down to the gray stones. My hand slapped the parapet as I sailed past. For a fraction of a second I was over the edge, looking down the endless drop of black gla.s.s and chrome to the distant, glowing street. Then I was hugging the wrong side of the parapet, my legs kicking against the void.

Coin stood above me, both hands raised. I could feel the air change as it gathered its will. I think I screamed, but what I remember thinking was Oh, well. That's it.

The world became a clockwork. My arm, slung over the edge, carried a certain ma.s.s at a particular angle. The friction of my feet against the side of the skysc.r.a.per held a particular and measurable force. Coin's hands were only hands, its will a faint echo of what it had been only seconds before. Someone had performed Kim's cantrip.

Coin stepped back, real shock in its expression now. Something metallic banged, and I got an ankle up over the parapet's edge and hauled for all I was worth. I felt weak, but it was enough. I landed hard on my side just as I heard the first shotgun blast.

Coin's back was to me now, one hand pointed as it advanced on the green door that had been closed until now. Ex stepped out onto the roof, Eric's shotgun held before him, and fired twice more. I heard Coin grunt at the impact. I saw the small figure of Kim in the stairwell behind Ex.

"Run!" I tried to shout, but it hardly came out louder than a groan. "He'll kill you!"

The concussion wasn't physical, but it was stunning all the same. A low hum like something electrical gathering a charge, and then the blast like a head blow from a brick. The world smelled like an iron skillet left on the burner by mistake. I forced my eyes open.

Ex lay on his back, blood running from his nose, his eyes wild with fear. Kim was no more than a low shape in the doorway. Coin stood over Ex's fallen body like a punch-drunk boxer who'd put his opponent down for the count. Who'd killed him. The suit jacket had come open, and Coin's chest was raw hamburger and blood where the shotgun's load of iron, salt, and silver had struck. It shook its head, trying to orient itself. Ex tried to say something, his jaw working without sound. The sense of a clockwork universe faded as Kim lost consciousness, and I felt my own strength coming back, at least enough that I could do something more than tremble.

Something glittered at Coin's feet. There in the stone litter of gravel, something shone bra.s.s and blackness. Coin was breathing hard. I shifted, getting my weight under me again. Ex tried to raise the shotgun, the barrel making a hushing sound as it dragged across the rooftop. Coin lifted its foot with slow deliberation and slammed down on Ex's chest. I imagined that I heard ribs snapping.

I launched.

I hit Coin in the small of the back, shoulder first and all my weight and power behind it. It felt like I'd tackled a concrete post, but Coin stumbled. Ex rolled once, from his back onto his belly, the shotgun underneath him now. Coin swung at me; the back of his hand grazing my cheek was enough to knock my head to the side. I dropped, scrabbling in the gravel for the glimmer I'd seen.

My fingers found the bullet, the weird energy of the sigils dry and mobile as a snake. I clenched a fist around it and jumped back. Coin's rib cage was falling and rising like a bellows. I stayed in a crouch, the bullet in my left hand, my eyes on the enemy.

As long as it breaks skin, we're fine.

Coin stepped back, arms spread wide and eyes closed. I felt its will gathering like a high wind full of knives. The shredded flesh of its chest wept blood without drenching it. I had the time it took to draw a breath, and if I failed, we were all dead.

I stepped forward and pressed the bullet to the shotgun wound. Something between my fingers shifted and squirmed. Coin's eyes opened in shock.

"Tag," I said. "You're it."

Imagine a balloon the size of the world. Touch a pin to it. Coin's death was that loud and that sudden, and then it was over. The husk of his body fell to the rooftop, took three slow wheezing breaths, and went still. I stood there for what seemed like an hour and wasn't more than five seconds. Slowly, I crouched down. Coin's eyes were still moving, looking up at me with horror and despair and then shifting to focus on something in the distance that only it could see. The bullet rested on its ruined sternum, the metal bright and unmarked, the engravings gone. I lay back.

The gravel felt comfortable as a feather bed. When I knew I was going to vomit, I rolled to my side. When I was empty, I rolled back. Far above in the dark sky, an airplane pulsed. There was no sound of traffic. We were too high up for that. There was only the hollow sound of the breeze in my ear, and then unsteady footsteps.

Kim came into view. A streak of blood darkened her cheek. I smiled at her.

"Jayne?" she said. "Are you okay?"

I managed a weak thumbs-up. My voice didn't seem to be working. She knelt beside me, her hand smoothing back my hair. I had the weird thought that Kim would have been a good mother. A little June Cleaver for my tastes, maybe, but perfect for someone else. There was a sc.r.a.pe, a cough, and a grunted obscenity as Ex started to move. It reminded me of something.

"How?" I managed.

"Your friend, Ex?" Kim said. "He put a GPS tracking device in your backpack. It was how he knew where we were before too."

I closed my eyes, frowned, opened them again.

"Creepy," I said.

"Needed to happen," Ex said. He was sitting up now, his arms around his chest. His face was pale with pain. I raised my hand and pointed a single finger at him.

"Creepy stalker bulls.h.i.t," I said. And then, "Thanks."

"Welcome," he said.

"Aaron and Candace are downstairs guarding the stairwell," Kim said. "Can you walk?"

I nodded, sat up, shook my head, and lay back down.

"Give me a minute," I said.

"I'm going to get the others," Kim said. "Don't go anywhere. Either of you. Just stay here."

I heard her walk away. My body felt like rubber. Like chewing gum that had lost all its flavor. Ex tried to stand up, groaned, and went still.

"GPS tracker?" I said.

"Seven hundred bucks, online," he said. "Little smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Put it in the side pocket. Took us a while figuring elevation, though."

"Deeply, deeply creepy."

I tried to think of something else to say, but there was nothing left in me. Ex and the sh.e.l.l that had been Randolph Coin and I all communed in silence. The last rays of sun glow dimmed in the west. Ex said something about very, very stubborn, but I wasn't listening closely enough to know whether he meant himself or me. I turned my head to see Coin's body. With eyes closed and mouth slack, it seemed to be sleeping.

Coin seemed peaceful. I wondered if death was always like that. I wondered whether some part of Eric could see us, wherever he was. If he still was at all. Heaven or the Pleroma or Philadelphia. I wondered if he knew I'd finished the job. Would he have been proud of me? I had screwed everything up from the start, but I'd seen it through. No plan had ever worked the way we'd meant it to, but then Coin's hadn't worked out either. I imagined Eric would see that as a win.

I hoped so.

I didn't sleep, but I wasn't perfectly conscious either. It surprised me when a man's broad hands lifted me to sitting. Aaron was beside me, looking concerned. Kim was at my other side, ready to lift me if needed. Candace was helping Ex walk to the stairway.

"We need to go now, okay? Jayne? Can you stand up?"

"I killed Randolph Coin," I said. "I can do anything."

Aaron grinned. He looked young when he did that. Like a little boy.

"Yeah," he said. "I think you can."

I rose slowly and started toward the open stairway. At the doorway, I stopped.

"Backpack," I said. "I need my pack. We can't leave anything here."

"It's okay," Kim said. "We've got it covered."

"Laptop?" I said.

"Yes, we got your laptop too," Aaron said. "Don't worry about it. How bad are you? Do we need to go to the hospital?"

"The hospital," I said. "Aubrey! We need to see Aubrey!"

"It's okay," Kim said. "We'll take care of that once you're all right."

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm perfect."

I didn't remember walking downstairs or out to Candace's car. A b.u.mp in the road brought me back to myself, and we were driving down the highway toward the house, Aaron and Kim in the front, Candace in the back with me and Ex slumped beside her. Ex's mouth was pinched with pain, but there was a light in his eyes. I thought that was what redemption must look like. When he saw me looking at him, he smiled. When I smiled back, he took my hand.

I was asleep before we got home.

Twenty-six.

Later, Ex told me that Chogyi Jake had appeared on the doorstep of Eric's old house the morning after Coin had died. His motorcycle was marred by deep, white scratches on the left side, and Chogyi Jake himself had a bruise on his back that looked like he'd been whipped by a bullwhip with legs like a centipede. The forces of the Invisible College had chased him just the way we'd hoped. They'd been in pursuit before he'd gotten six blocks from the house. He'd eluded them, but only just. Midian had never arrived at the airstrip that I'd reserved for his flight out. We didn't know if he'd made it or not, a fact that haunted me for a long time. Chogyi Jake slept for fourteen hours, but I hadn't noticed at the time, since I crashed for almost twenty.

I woke in my bed, only half aware of where I was and what had happened. I'd stumbled out to the main room in a T-shirt and sweats to find Ex very slowly preparing one of Midian's frozen meals and reading a new, deeply anonymous report that had been dropped off on my doorstep.

Randolph Coin had been killed in something that looked like a drug-trade hit. His personal secretary, Alexander Hume, had also been shot and killed. The police were investigating, and it appeared that the attack was linked to a heroin and prost.i.tution operation in Boulder. Aaron was mentioned by name as being part of that investigation.

That was the first three pages. There were nineteen others that followed. I'd wolfed down potatoes and green chili and two cups of black coffee while Ex read the report out loud. By the end, Chogyi Jake and Kim had joined us in the kitchen, all of us listening to Ex declaim the words of my lawyer.

When we'd all gone over it twice, I called Aubrey and he answered. We'd gone to see him as soon as we could, and now Chogyi Jake and I were almost done bringing him up to speed.

He looked pretty good for a guy who hadn't been in his own body for over a week. His eyes were bright, and his smile came out often and with almost no prompting. He even had his hair washed and cut. Apart from the skimpy little hospital gown, he was the picture of health. Way ahead of the rest of us. He flipped through the report, his eyebrows slowly sliding up his forehead.

"They're falling apart," Aubrey said.

"Just the way Eric said they would," I said. "The Invisible College just took a long dive into an empty swimming pool. Coin was the linchpin. All of the things he'd done in the world fell apart when we killed him."

"Including my coma. It sounds like it was quite the experience," Aubrey said. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"I wouldn't be," I said. "It was mostly not fun."

"All the more reason I should have been there," Aubrey said.

"Next time," I said, and put my hand on his knee. It was a small gesture, that touch. Not even skin against skin. Still, I could feel him tense at it, and then relax.

"I can't believe you called Kim," he said, with something like a laugh, except it was a little forced.

"Kim's all right," I said. "I like her."

The atmosphere grew tense. Chogyi Jake cleared his throat and rose.

"I'm sure there's a restroom around here somewhere," he said, and made his discreet exit. The other bed in the suite was empty. Aubrey and I were alone. Tentatively, he took my hand. I had the powerful memory of being in his apartment, in his bed. I looked away, willing myself not to blush.

"I owe you," Aubrey said. "After it all went south, I would have thought you'd run. And instead you...you did it. You went after him. You won."

"Well, it was that or leave you as neurologically active broccoli," I said. "It seemed like the right thing to do. Besides which, they killed Eric. It wasn't like I could just let it slide."

"It was brave," he said.

I felt a flash of annoyance, and Aubrey must have seen it. He sat back, suddenly tentative. He started to take back his hand, but I held on and tugged him toward me.

"It's not that I don't appreciate you saying that," I said, "but would you have said it to Kim or Ex? Or Chogyi Jake? h.e.l.l, Midian? Sure, I was a brave little bunny and rose to the occasion, but so did everyone else. Any of us could have gotten killed or worse. It wasn't just me."

"I'm sorry."

"And stop apologizing," I said. "Condescending and apologizing for it are really not the combination you're looking for. Aubrey, I'm glad as h.e.l.l you're back. I missed you. But you've got to stop thinking of me as the lost little girl you met at the airport. She's gone."

"And how should I think of you?" he asked. His voice was low. It was a charged moment. I could have said anything. Think of me as your friend. Your lover. Think of me the way you thought of Eric. Think of me as your wife's confidant.

"I'm working on that part," I said.

THE STORMS had broken the summer heat's back. As I left the hospital, climbed up into Chogyi Jake's van, and headed out toward the house, it felt like autumn. Still T-shirt weather, but not the a.s.saulting sweat-down-your-back kind. It was like the city and the sunlight had reached some kind of peace. I rolled down the window as we drove, my arm lolling out into the wind of our pa.s.sage the way it had when I was a kid.

Chogyi Jake and I got back to the house in the early afternoon. Ex was waiting for us, sitting on the couch with his shirt off, and a wrapping of bandages shoring up his cracked ribs. Wide bruises peeked out at the edges. His hair was loose around his shoulders, making him look vaguely angelic.

"How's the invalid?" he asked.

"Aubrey's fine," I said. "The doctors are a little freaked out by a guy in a coma for eight days not having a whole lot of brain damage. I wasn't going to tell them that the damage was spiritual. They don't like that kind of talk."

"Makes them think you're a religious nut," Chogyi Jake agreed as he closed the door.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"I'll live," Ex said.

"You should see a doctor," Chogyi Jake said.

Ex shook his head carefully.

"I don't want any records of this," he said. "You go to the emergency room, they just ask questions. How did it happen, why didn't you come in sooner. Then there's police asking if you want to make a statement. Before long, they start putting us together with what happened to Coin. There's nothing they can do for a broken rib except wait for it to grow back together, and I can do that on my own."

"Besides which, he's weirdly into pain," I said to Chogyi Jake. "Thinks it makes him a better person."

"It's manly, at least," Chogyi agreed, picking up on my teasing tone.

"If one of you happens to have a Percocet, I wouldn't say no," Ex said sourly, but he also smiled. "Aaron and Candace called to make sure everyone was all right. Things appear to be going well in their neck of the woods. I'm still having them check in four times a day until we're certain the remnants of the College haven't traced anything back to them."

"I wish they'd stayed here," I said. "Eric's protections-"

"Are worn to nothing," Chogyi Jake said. "If they were still pushing, they'd have broken through by now. And not being around us has a certain protective aspect too," Chogyi Jake said.

"I know," I said, putting down my backpack and looking into the kitchen. "It's just I want everyone where I can see them. It makes me feel better. Where's Kim?"

Ex started to shrug, then winced and went a little pale.