Summer Chapter Two
LOST
Summer watched Barker as he approached the sword. She knew he was afraid by the way he walked, loose and slow, like a lion stalking difficult prey. She’d seen lions at the Central Park Zoo, and on Animal Planet, and she thought they were beautiful.
But she thought Barker was more beautiful by far, with his dusky skin and wild red dreads, and those yellow eyes that seemed to notice everything.
When she was ten, Summer decided she’d grow up and marry Barker, and they’d have pretty yellow-eyed children, and live together in a posh penthouse off Central Park. That was before Winter told her Barker had a boyfriend back at Fairy Court.
Winter lied sometimes, but as she grew older, Summer decided her brother probably wasn’t lying about that and she mostly forgot her crush.
Mostly.
“It’s called Buairt,” she said now, about the sword. “It means ‘Sorrow’.”
“I remember,” Barker replied. He stood over the sword, scrutinizing the blade where it lay on display on Summer’s hotel-room desk. Summer had spread an old Chanel coat across the desk under the sword, partly because the cheap desk was gross, partly because she thought the ugly sword looked better against hounds-tooth.
“I don’t feel anything,” Barker admitted. “Nothing at all.”
Summer, sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed, chewed at her lip. Her mother would go into a temper if she knew they were experimenting with the sword that had killed the Prince of Fairies. Buiart had almost killed Barker, too. It had taken a human priest to save the yellow-eyed fay.
Luckily, her mother was still stuck on the island of Manhattan and had no idea what they were about.
“I think Brother Daniel gave you a soul,” Summer said. “That’s why you don’t feel anything. He gave you a soul, a mortal soul, and now the sword doesn’t want to eat you anymore. Pretty fucked up, if you ask me. But cool.”
Barker shot Summer a disgusted look. She noticed he still wouldn’t touch the sword.
“Souls aren’t accessories,” he said. “And the human gods take no notice of our kind.”
“Ask Brother Daniel,” Summer challenged. “He’ll be back any minute. But first – pick up the stupid sword. Stop sulking, do something useful. Pick up the sword!”
Barker growled. His fingers twitched. Then he bent in a swoop and grabbed Sorrow by the hilt with both hands. His knuckles clenched when he lifted the rapier off the desk. Summer knew the sword wasn’t heavy; she’d carried it herself. She thought maybe Barker was trying to make himself not let go.
She met Barker’s yellow stare. He glared back. The cheap analog clock on the wall over the hotel bed ticked three times. Summer released a long breath.
“See,” she said, relieved. “Nothing. Soul or no soul, it can’t hurt you anymore. Which means you’re coming with.”
Barker set Sorrow back onto the desk. He scrubbed his hands on the fresh new Levis Summer had found on sale at Macy’s. His old jeans had just bagged, he’d lost so much weight. His favorite Stones shirt hung from his shoulders the way her papa’s shirts used to hang on Winter, when Winter was eight, before he’d left home.
“I am not,” he said, “‘coming with’. I’ll get you safely to Yorktown, because I owe it to Himself. After that, my debt is paid.”
Summer drew her knees up under her chin and put on her best pout. She wasn’t really irritated. She knew Winter would change Barker’s mind eventually. She was puzzled. Since she’d been old enough to understand the stories, she’d known every sidhe Exile wanted nothing more than to cheat Gloriana’s geis and find a Way between worlds and return home to Fairy Court. Some of her papa’s people would have killed for a return ticket home. One or two had tried.
Barker, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all jazzed about the Cornwallis Cave, or the possibilities it might hold.
“If Mama knew you’d made it off the island,” Summer said through her pout. “I bet she’d make you promise to be my bodyguard, and to help Winter kill Gloriana.”
Barker ignored her. He walked away from the desk and the sword, instead positioning himself against the closed door dividing Summer’s room from Hannah’s. There he crossed his arms over his chest and went back into what Lolo liked to call ‘CIA Mode’, all watchful and super remote.
Summer squelched a pang of jealousy. She wanted to like Hannah, and she felt sorry for the other girl. But she was tired of watching everyone treat Gloriana’s daughter like she was the queen-of-everything, when really it should be just the opposite.
“You Warded her doors.” Summer slid off the bed, crossed the room, and rummaged in the tiny mini-bar. She snagged a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms and a tiny bottle of Perrier. “We’ll know when she wakes up. Maybe you should catch a nap, too. Because as soon as Winter gets back you know he’ll want us on the road right away. Win’s always worried about wasting time.”
Barker didn’t answer. He was doing a pretty good job of pretending she wasn’t in the room, but something had him rattled. He might be lounging all panther-like, but Summer could see the jumping pulse in his neck and smell the tang of fear off his lovely mahogany skin.
Even though she sometimes pretended otherwise, Summer didn’t really like watching other people suffer. So she decided to give the older sidhe space and took her snack out into the hotel hall. The carpet and the wallpaper were the same color – a dirty beige with green paisley – and the repeating pattern was dizzying.
She propped the door open with one of Lolo’s discarded shoes, then slid down the door-jam until she crouched on the threshold. She used her teeth to rip open the bag of M&Ms and dug for the green ones.
She’d eaten fifteen green and started on the blues when the elevator down the hall chimed and Lolo jumped out. He came down the corridor in a flat-out run, only slowing when he saw her.
“You don’t need to run, Win’s not back yet.” Summer uncapped her Perrier and took a healthy swig. “Where’s Brother Daniel? You didn’t loose him, did you? We need him.”
Lolo snatched the bag of M&M’s from Summer’s hand. He leaned against the wall and dumped candy into one palm. Winter had made the younger boy wash his dreads in The Plaza’s giant shower; his hair had been full of a year’s dried sluagh goo. Lolo had added red wooden beads and bits of ribbon to his new look, plus a necklace of tiny grinning skulls.
Summer thought he looked a little too Rasta, but at least he smelled better.
“I keep trying to loose him,” Lolo admitted around a handful of chocolate. “He’s scary-impossible to shake and I don’t think he’s even trying that hard.” He shook his head, beads clicking. “We’ve got a problem, Summer.”
Summer slid back up the door jam.
“What now?” she asked, just as the elevator dinged again. Brother Dan stepped out into the hall. A plastic grocery bag dangled from each of the friar’s large hands. He didn’t look in any hurry at all.
“Told you,” Lolo muttered. Then; “Win’s gone.”
“What?”
Summer put her hand against the wall so the world didn’t tilt. Ever since Michael Smith had killed her papa, she’d been practicing not feeling. Every morning after she woke she’d stare at herself in the bathroom mirror for a good five minutes, until she was sure she wasn’t going to cry, and those cold, scream-your-head-off in the shower feelings were safely buried in the pit of her stomach.
She’d almost managed to convince herself that no more Bad Things would happen, because nothing could be worse than watching her favorite parent bleed out on a 6th Avenue sidewalk.
“What do you mean, gone?” There were little patches of white sparkling in the air. She shook her head to clear them and discovered she was leaning on Brother Daniel’s arm, gripping his sleeve with both hands. “What do you mean?”
Brother Daniel led Summer back into the hotel room. He sat her down in the room’s one chair and pushed her head between her knees.
“Breath,” Daniel said. “Your brother’s fine, as far as we know.”
“As far as you know?”
That was Barker; soft, smooth and dangerous. Summer felt a little better hearing his voice. She stared between her Chanel ballet flats at the carpet and reminded her fluttering heart that Barker was almost as good as Winter at fixing things.
“We followed him down into the Metro,” said Lolo. “Then he sort of disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Summer felt a little better. She lifted her head. “That’s just Winter. He disappears all the time. He’ll be back.”
Lolo was holding her abandoned Perrier. He looked down into the mouth of the bottle instead of at her face.
“No. He really disappeared. Like – zap – through his portal.”
“Your friend closed the rift,” Barker argued. “Blew it to hell, along with half the triangle.”
“Yeah, well.” Lolo shrugged. He handed Summer her water, even though she didn’t want it. “It, like, moved, or something. Or maybe he called it up again.”
“He wouldn’t do that!” Summer spat, insulted. “He’d never do that. Win wanted that Way gone more than anything else in the world, because then he could come home.”
Lolo turned away, shoulders slumped. Daniel crouched at Summer’s side. He took her cold fingers in warm hands.
“We watched Winter step into the rift. Lorenzo shouted, but your brother didn’t answer.”
“You should have gone after him,” Summer accused the backside of Lolo’s head. “You should have brought him back!”
“I tried,” Lolo said over his shoulder. “Brother Asshole stopped me. It’s like arguing with a bear – a bear with a shank.”
“It looked dangerous,” the friar replied. “And an empty Glock won’t do you much good against demons, hermano.”
Summer knew Lolo had been carrying Winter’s gun. She didn’t know he’d been carrying it without Richard’s special iron bullets. It occurred to her maybe that was why her brother had gone back into the collapsed Metro: they were out of ammunition.
“He wouldn’t leave me,” she said. “He knows Mama’s counting on him. He wouldn’t leave me. He’s coming back.”
Barker straightened. Summer didn’t like the pity she saw on his usually impassive face.
“We’ll go and see,” he said. To Summer’s surprise he crossed the room and picked up Buairt, scabbard and all. “If the Way is open again, her ladyship will need to know.”
“Better wait until after dark.” Lolo drifted around the room, television remote in hand. “The Triangle is crawling with cops and Feds and Homeland rent-a-guns. It’s like they think it’ll blow up all over again.” He scowled at the TV. “Can’t believe this place just gets local. Who watches local?”
For a vivid minute Summer hated Lolo. Couldn’t he see her world was falling apart? Didn’t he care? She wanted to burst up and pull on his stupid beads until he paid attention.
Then she noticed the way he was chewing a hole in his lip while he played with the remote. She realized he was just as scared as she was and that made her have to put her head between her knees again.
“After dark, then,” Barker said. “What about the Changeling?”
Summer felt the room practically hold its breath as everyone eyed the closed door between suites.
“I’ll stay,” Brother Daniel said.
“You’re big, but without Win here to scare her, she’ll probably set the whole building on fire.”
“I’ve got a few of tricks up my own sleeve,” Daniel dismissed Lolo’s concerns. “I’ll stay.”
There wasn’t much moon up when Summer, Barker and Lolo left the Capitol Holiday Inn: just a sickly yellow sliver. There wasn’t much artificial light, either. The power grid still hadn’t recovered from Richard’s bomb. As far as Summer could tell the city blocks were lighted in random and unreliable squares.
She expected Barker to Gather enough light so they didn’t trip over some collapsed junkie or fall into a hole. Instead he pulled three heavy flashlights from thin air, which was really even more impressive.
When he handed Summer hers, the metal casing was still warm.
Lolo whistled softly. “Can you do that? Pull whatever you want from nowhere?”
“No.” She wasn’t going to tell Lolo that she’d spent half of her life trying, and never managed to Summon a single thing. “Neither can Winter.”
“Let’s go.” Barker switched on his light. He stated through the night, black biker-boots soundless on the pavement.
Summer followed, trying to be equally silent. It took a small tug of power, and a lot of concentration. It helped that she’d bypassed fashion and worn a pair of soft-soled sneakers. When they crossed through a gloomy park covered with frozen leaves, Summer didn’t even crack a twig. She felt a surge of pride.
Lolo rustled through the drifts like an eager puppy, swinging his flashlight from side to side.
“He’s cool and all,” he said, aiming his beam at Barker’s heels. “But in a creepy creeper sort of way. I get the feels he’d cut me into little pieces if you asked him too, and he’d probably like it.”
“He would.” Summer was glad she’d remembered her gloves, all the way from Manhattan. It was almost as cold in D.C. as it was up north. She stuck her flashlight in one armpit and zipped her coat up as far as it would go. “He’s sworn to protect me. Sort of like another geis. I’m not sure he’d actually like dicing you up, but he’s good at it.” Then she whispered: “Remember, he’s terrified of the dark.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” Lolo demanded. “Hold his hand?”
“Children.” Barker managed to pitch his voice so it slipped around the skeletal trees, a whisper, then rang loud in their skulls. “Quiet!”
Summer muffled a snort of laughter when Lolo jumped like a startled cat.
“I can’t do that, either,” she said, then hurried to catch Barker.
The National Mall blazed with the light the rest of the Capitol was lacking. Herds of generators crouched in groups, linked by masses of thick black cable, polluting the night with their rumbles and groans. The generators powered tall, grilled emergency lights, almost all of which shone down into the exposed Metro.
Only, when Summer pressed against yellow police tape, standing high on the toes of her sneakers, she saw there wasn’t much of the Mall Metro left. Mostly it was one gigantic crater, torn out of the earth by explosion, then smashed further into the ground by rogue bits of the fallen Washington Monument. Steam rose from the mix of soil and metal and torn pipe; it rolled back and forth like white fog beneath the lights.
“So much for waiting until after dark,” Lolo said. “Spotlights aren’t gonna keep the sluagh down in their hole.”
“I imagine the mortals have other monsters in mind.” Barker muted his flashlight. He regarded the crater, then the armed men and women in military fatigue surrounding it. “How did you get in?”
“Not this way,” Lolo scoffed. “And it’s not the Marines you should be worrying about. It’s the one’s like her.” Casually, he jerked an elbow sideways.
Summer tried to look without turning her head. A woman in a grey trenchcoat and battered ball cap stood not far away under one of the spotlights. She seemed to be moon-gazing. Then the woman swiveled, looking over the crater and directly at their small group. Summer felt a prickle of unease.
“What makes you think I was worrying about the Marines?” Barker retorted. “Show me how you got in.”
Lolo led them away from the crater. He whistled softly as he walked. Summer couldn’t place the tune. She trailed behind as they crunched over another expanse of frozen grass, past the Smithsonian Institute. The castle was dark, but the glow of emergency lights cast spooky shadows over the brick facade, making her shiver.
She wondered what Barker thought of his new freedom. She’d been allowed to visit Winter once or twice since he’d been sent away and she’d always been excited at the chance to explore a different city. But Barker had gone straight from Fairy Court to Manhattan, then lived centuries trapped on the island.
Summer was a little surprise he wasn’t running about in mad circles, trying to see everything new all at once. Maybe he thought one mortal city was the same as another. Maybe he didn’t feel well enough for enthusiasm or awe.
Maybe he was still mourning her papa.
She buried that thought quickly, squinting hard at Barker’s rigid shoulders until she was sure she wouldn’t cry.
Lolo turned right just past the castle, and walked them south past the Air and Space Museum. The damage from Richard’s bomb didn’t extend much beyond the Smithsonian, except for the dust and a few lost chunks of concrete and grass.
“Win’s portal wasn’t exactly right under the Washington Monument,” Lolo explained. “But close enough. Richard must have set off his C4 as close to the sluagh hole as he could get. MetroRail’s not as massive as the New York Subway, but it’s not small, either. And Richard’s tunnel is on the other side of L’Enfant.”
He gestured again, this time with his flashlight, as they passed L’Enfant Plaza Station. The station was cordoned off and under guard. Summer felt another unwelcome pang of grief. L’Enfant was Winter’s territory and now Richard’s stupidity had started mortals sniffing about.
“Federal Center’s actually closer to home,” Lolo continued. He hopped off the curb, still humming under his breath, then cut sideways across an old, cobblestone alley lined with leafless trees. “And it’s got another totally sweet perk.”
“What would that be?” Barker asked. The sidhe ghosted silently alongside Summer. He’d switched his light back on, muffling the blaze with a wad of his shirt hem, even though Summer knew he could see as well as a cat in the dark.
She tried not to feel sorry for him, in case he heard the sympathy in her head.
“Federal’s far enough away it’s local cops watching it,” explained Lolo. “And they know me.”
“How’s that a good thing?” Summer demanded.
Lolo only shrugged. “No funky fay Glamour required. Just the right words in the right ear.”
“Bran,” Summer guessed. “He taught you a secret police password, or something.”
Lolo made a rude noise.
“Bran’s a suit,” he said, as if Summer had suggested something dirty. “They’re not going to like you, though,” he told Barker. “‘Specially the demon eyes.”
“They won’t notice me,” the sidhe replied. “Lead on.”
The two cops guarding Federal Station didn’t exactly smile when they saw Lolo, but they relaxed enough make Summer think they recognized him as a friend. When the tiny policewoman bumped Lolo’s fist and then slapped him on the back, Summer wondered if maybe they were more like family.
“Hola, como esta?” The woman stood proud in her blues, but she was barely taller than Lolo, even in her chunky boots. “What’s happening, mi hijo? It’s not a good night to be out.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad,” Lolo replied. Summer noticed he kept Winter’s gun carefully hidden under his ratty denim coat. “We’ve got business inside, Mary-Beth.”
Mary-Beth’s bulky partner shifted, but didn’t say anything. Mary-Beth looked from Lolo to Summer. Some of the humor left her mouth.
“This weather, every squatter in the triangle wants to sleep in the tunnels. We’ve just finished clearing them out, best we can. Why would we want to let you in?” She looked Summer up and down again. “You messing with Park Avenue trouble, Lolo?”
“No,” Lolo answered quickly. “No drugs, nada, you know me better, Mar. Business inside is totally kosher, and it won’t take long. Camera’s still out?”
“Like the rest of the electricity.” Mary-Beth’s partner turned his head and spat on the cement, just missing the square of concrete Barker had occupied a few seconds earlier. Barker himself had vanished. “It’s not exactly safe in there, and I don’t mean the structure. Tunnels are wormy with vagrants, and hookers, and some that are looking for that Park Avenue thrill. We can’t round ’em all up, they mouse back in so fast.”
Lolo nodded. “That’s why we’re here. Summer’s lost her brother. Word on the block’s he’s gone under looking for a high. We just wanna find him and take him home before his padre gets wind, or before he picks the wrong dealer.”
Summer felt Mary-Beth’s stare a third time. She scowled at a the toes of her sneakers and tried to look worried. It wasn’t difficult. Her stomach knotted every time she thought of Winter.
He’s not gone, she promised herself, but the toes of her shoes blurred. He wouldn’t leave me.
Maybe the cops noticed the tears leaking down her nose.
“Okay,” Mary-Beth relented. “But you be careful. And stay away from the blast site. That will come down around your ears, you breath wrong.”
“Gracias,” Lolo bumped the cop’s fist again. This time Summer saw the wad of money as it changed hands, a quick flick of green between fingers.
The other cop spat a second time as they slipped into the station’s dark and gaping mouth.
“That looked like a lot of cash,” Summer said once they were out of earshot.
“Not really.” Lolo pointed his flashlight into the depths. Summer saw the prickly slope of a stopped escalator and the impression of squares on the barrel-vaulted ceiling above. “I keep a few Benjamins around for emergencies. Mary-Beth’s got a sister in one of those shiny Connecticut coke hospitals. Her family could use the tax-free donation, no skin off my ass. Knew she’d fall for the lost brother story; Mar’s got a boner for happy-ever-after rehab stories.”
“Lovely.” Barker detached himself from the shadows at the bottom of the motionless escalator. “Your empathy is over-whelming.”
“Talk out loud.” Lolo clattered down the escalator. “Make noise. People down here, they don’t want to be found. Give ’em time to hide away: no trouble.”
Barker watched Lolo with unblinking yellow eyes, but stepped aside and let the boy take the lead. Summer wanted to run back up the escalator and into the night. She took a deep breath and followed Lolo. Barker walked silently at her back.
She’d been in the Metrorail tunnels before, of course. The very first time she’d thought of it as a game; Winter hiding beneath a mortal city, walking among the humans all unknown. Then, he’d given her a tour of Richard’s money-train tunnel, served her Thai food in the makeshift kitchen.
He’d been all of ten. She’d been eight. And Winter hadn’t let her sleep over-night in the tunnels, not once the trains stopped running and the sluagh came hunting. No, come dark she’d been safely tucked away in a nearby hotel with Gabby to guard her dreams.
“Watch it,” Lolo cautioned. The beam from his flashlight arced back and forth across the station platform, picking out bits of trash, and chunks of fallen rocks. “The third rail’s dead, but don’t go tripping over it.”
Summer stood at the edge of the platform. She looked down at the tracks. More trash, and rocks, and in the white circle of her own shifting light: a dead rat.
“Gross. Seriously gross.”
“Iron,” Barker hissed, more interested in the tracks than road-kill. Summer knew it was a reflexive reaction. Most of the Exiles were iron-immune. Centuries of living around mortals and mortal steel dulled the iron-sickness.
But Barker had recently been pierced through by a sword forged of consecrated, Church iron. Summer couldn’t blame him for holding a grudge.
“Chill.” Lolo bent at the knees, then dropped off the platform. He landed in the trench, one foot on either side of the third rail. “You’re cool. Train’s aren’t running.”
Barker seemed to float from platform to dirt. He held up a hand for Summer. She ignored it, hopping into the trench behind Lolo.
“Stinks,” she complained. “Like a toilet.”
“Pinch your nose and suck it up. Follow me. Don’t look to the side, even if they try to make you. Don’t engage.”
“What are you talking about? Engage who?” Summer stood on her toes and peered over Lolo’s shoulder.
Lolo lifted his arm, pointing his light straight ahead. The Federal Station platform ended ten feet ahead. Where the station trench ended, the underground waited, a gaping tunnel mouth. Lolo’s flashlight turned the entrance grey, and illuminated a few more feet past the entrance.
“Them,” said Lolo, and Summer saw they weren’t alone.
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