“But heard it a lot?” I guessed.
“Too much.”
We reached the street, and I paused before stepping out onto the sidewalk. Here and there, people stood in front of shop doors, but for the most part, the usually busy area was devoid of pedestrians. The barricade wasn’t visible, thanks to a curve in the road, but there were other police cars and two fire engines parked in the middle of the street, their lights flashing. At the moment, all of the cops appeared to be helping the paramedics who were loading people into ambulances. Given my long conversation with Jakatra, it had to have been well over a half hour since Autumn had first texted us. How many people must have gone down if the EMTs still hadn’t managed to collect them all?
I shook my head, wondering what would happen if we didn’t find this bait box before the jibtab was ready to fight again. There weren’t any caves nearby, and it was probably too big to be lured into the shops.
A couple of thorns abutting the base of a brick building caught my eye. The thorns I had tried so hard to get samples of earlier were now scattered all over the street. And being plucked out of people’s flesh, no doubt. I was tempted to run up to the paramedics and tell them what the “poison” was, but as Autumn had said, the hospital must already know by now.
I spotted the crystal shop Simon had mentioned. If he was searching on this side of the street, we should start with the restaurants and stores on the other side. Would the police notice us if we ran across? And if they did, would they try to stop us, or would they be too busy?
Simon stepped out of the crystal shop, looked both ways, then waved for us to join him. Maybe Temi was already searching the other side of the street. Or maybe he needed help. As Alek and I jogged toward him, I spotted people’s faces pressed to the window of the first store we passed. Men, women, and children were staring out, noticing us, yes, but also watching the paramedics. They must have been ordered to stay inside.
“Find anything?” I asked when we reached Simon. Naomi stood beside him, holding the metal detector and texting someone. Checking in with her grandmother? Or the dozen-odd friends she had back home who might have heard her vacation town was on the news?
“Loose change people have dropped,” Simon said, “though the store workers keep making us give it to them.”
“What are you people supposed to be?” a wiry gray-haired man asked from the threshold of the shop next door. This part of the street had covered sidewalks, and more people were being brave about poking their noses—and bodies—outside. The man eyed my whip and Alek’s sword.
I wanted to ignore the man, but Simon spun toward him with a smile. “We’re monster hunters, of course.” He slipped something out of his pocket and extended it. A business card? When had he gotten business cards? “Here’s our website. We took care of the monster in Prescott. You can follow our hunts online. I’ll try to get some live footage of our next battle.”
“You took care of…” The man looked Simon up and down, then issued a dismissive snort.
It surprised me that his objection was more to the notion of Simon as a monster hunter than to the notion of there being monsters in the first place.
I poked Simon. “You see which way Temi went? She shouldn’t be alone with that sword.”
“I think she went across the street, but I haven’t heard from her, either.”
One of the police officers was frowning at us from the back of the closest ambulance. He waved to a cop in a car. A moment later, a battery-operated megaphone squeaked, making me wince. A cool voice announced, “You are reminded that you need to stay inside until we’re certain the shooter has been apprehended.”
“Shooter,” Simon said. “Right.”
We backed into the doorway of the crystal shop, so we would be less noticeable, but I was planning my move to the opposite side of the street, so I didn’t go inside.
My phone bleeped, and a surge of relief ran through me. Temi.
Behind the BBQ place. The sword is guiding me.
Jakatra said not to necessarily go where it tells you, I texted back. I doubted there was a vortex behind the BBQ shack, but I was less convinced than ever that she should be using the sword as a divining rod. We’re coming to help you.
“You two want to stay here and keep searching?” I asked.
“Sure. Chocolate shop next, Naomi? I’m sure there’s good bait in there.”
Naomi lifted her head, though she didn’t match Simon’s smile. “I can’t get ahold of my grandmother. I tried calling three times.”
“Was she here?” I waved to the shopping area.
“No, back at the campground.”
“She ought to be fine then. That’s a few miles back up the highway.”
Naomi hesitated, but nodded. She and Simon headed for the next shop on their list—or the shop they had chosen to make next on their list—and I walked back out to the curb. Alek took a step down into the street, but I touched his arm to make him pause a second.
I nodded at the closest police car. “Alek, we can’t be caught by those guys, but we can’t fight with them, either, all right?”
“I understand.”
We waited until nobody was looking in our direction, then ran across the street. At least, I thought nobody was looking at us.
“Hey, you two. It’s not safe to be out here yet.” A police officer jumped out of a car, though he was glancing toward the sky as he spoke. He must have been a first-hand witness to the barrage of thorns. If they couldn’t see the jibtab any better than I could, then they wouldn’t know it had left the area. The drone was a telltale sign of its proximity, but they might not have heard it over all the commotion in the streets.
Alek took the lead, running toward an alley between two buildings. I raced after him—and the policeman raced after me. He must have decided to make an example of anyone who ran out from the protection of the buildings. Wonderful.
Alek didn’t run through the alley to the other side. Instead he leaped, caught a rain gutter, and pulled himself up onto the roof. I couldn’t reach that gutter, but I spotted a stovepipe and unhooked my whip. I snapped it, trying to find an angle that would allow me to wrap the pipe. Standing between two buildings didn’t make that easy.
The cop charged around the corner at the front of the alley, skidding on gravel. I was about to give up and run through, but Alek appeared at the edge of the rooftop. He crouched, sticking his arm out like a falconer waiting for his bird to perch. I snapped the whip, using a soft touch to wrap his arm. It caught, and before I’d even started to climb, he was pulling me up.
“Stop, you two,” the policeman growled. “You need to stay inside.”
“We’re trying to help,” I called back, but I didn’t slow down, and I certainly didn’t stop.
Alek handed the end of the whip back to me, and we sprinted across the rooftop. The next several shops were connected, so we crossed several of them before reaching another alley. Of course, I couldn’t tell what any of the shops were from up here. I sniffed the air, trying to smell the direction of the restaurant, but the BBQ party was doubtlessly on hold for the monster attack.
Alek stopped at the edge of the roof and looked back at me.
Where are you now? I texted Temi, feeling useless crouching on a building.
Another ambulance wheeled off, its lights flashing as it headed for the hospital on the other side of town. Yells of “When can we leave?” and “Is it safe to come out yet?” came from the doorways of the shops. I hoped the policeman who had been chasing us was too distracted to follow us. Nobody had climbed up onto our roof.
I squinted at the late afternoon sky, as if I might glimpse the flying assailant that had wreaked carnage on the town. The red rock formations loomed in the distance, the same as always, overlooking the town without sympathy for the plight of the humans below.
Temi didn’t answer her text, so I tried calling.
“We’re not doing any good up here,” I told Alek while I waited for her to answer.
“Let’s go down and search some of these shops. Maybe if we go in the back door, the police won’t notice us.”
His eyebrow twitched at the word I was using for police, “Crypteia.” Implying the Sedona authorities were the equivalent of the Spartan secret security force tasked with keeping the helots from uprising probably wasn’t a good idea, but there wasn’t time for a better explanation.
“Where are you, Temi?” I growled at the phone display as my call dropped to voice mail for the third time.
Wherever she was, we weren’t close enough for me to hear a cell phone ringing.
I pointed at the ground, then swung down, using the gutter for support. Alek and I landed, this time on a sidewalk instead of an alley. I was about to head for the door of a clothing store when a massive boom erupted from somewhere nearby.
The ground heaved, pitching me into Alek. He caught me, keeping me upright, but the roar of the explosion was too loud for me to thank him. I gaped around as roof tiles were hurled to the street all around us. We staggered for the side of the building, hiding under the eaves for protection. More than roof tiles came next—broken boards and head-size chunks of cement slammed onto the pavement.
Someone’s curses rose over the noise of falling debris, the police out on the main street. The words “bomb squad” floated back to me.
“Bomb?” I whispered. Or something new from the monster? Or that elf?
Forgetting the police officer who had been chasing us, I ran toward the main street. Before I hit the corner, I was craning my neck left and right, trying to see where the explosion had originated. It didn’t take long to spot the billows of black smoke wafting into the azure sky. A few more steps, and I spotted the building where the bomb had gone off. The remains of the building. It was the T-shirt store a few shops down, a stand-alone structure that was now missing three walls.
The police were converging on it. Someone’s whimpers of pain drifted out of the area. I swallowed. Temi?
Alek reacted first, running past me, straight for the building. I charged after him, wishing I had some way to track Temi by her sword. She still hadn’t responded to my text or voice messages.
“Might be a good reason,” I whispered as I ran.
Alek jumped over the pile of rubble that was all that remained of the front wall, ignoring a blurted, “Hey!” from one of the police officers. “No civilians—it isn’t stable.”
What wasn’t stable? The roof was gone. I couldn’t imagine what was left to fall on us.
“Our friend’s in there,” I said, though I hoped I was wrong. I scrambled after Alek, going over the two-foot-high remains of the front wall as far from the police as I could in case they had the notion of dragging us out. Shattered glass crunched under my feet. Smoke lingered in the rubble, and soot painted what remained of the walls.
“We’ll handle it, ma’am. Benson, go get them.”
Alek seemed to have an idea of where he was going and headed straight for the rubble pile in the back corner. Following him, I climbed over roof debris, the remains of a sales counter, and destroyed racks of T-shirts smashed into the floor, but I halted before I caught up with Alek. An arm was sticking out from one of the piles of cement and beams, the fingers twitching.
“God,” I whispered, more horrified by this than by the thorns raining from the sky. It was a pale-skinned arm, so it didn’t belong to Temi, but I had to stop. “Over here,” I called to the two cops who had been picking their way toward me, anyway.
I crouched, carefully pulling off any pieces of cement that I could lift. I was terrified they would slip from my fingers and do more damage by smashing down onto the person. The cops joined me, and for a ludicrous minute, I thought they were going to drag me away, but they went right to work beside me, clearing the rubble. One called for backup. Sweat soon dribbled down my head, but our work was rewarded as more of the person—a woman in a blood-smeared sweater—came into view. I couldn’t guess at the extent of her injuries, but her eyes were open, and she was sucking in small gasps of air.
Paramedics arrived with a stretcher, and I backed away so they could get to the woman. There wasn’t any sign of Alek. Grimacing, I clambered over and around rubble, aiming for the direction he had last been heading.
“Ma’am, we appreciate your help, but need you to step outside please,” a man said from behind me.
“All right, I’m going.” I pointed toward the back wall, half of which was still standing. The corner hadn’t gone down, but the roof had collapsed. Maybe Alek had gone out back to look in the debris on the outside? Or maybe I was now missing a second friend. Damn it.
“Alek? Where’d you go?”
I scrambled over the largest pile of rubble yet and slipped and skidded down the back side. My whip tried to catch on the jagged pieces of cement. Frustrated, I yanked it free. “Alek?”
I stepped outside and reached for my phone, intending to try to reach Temi again, and maybe to check in with Simon, too, but Alek was waiting in the shade of that remaining portion of wall, his eyes grim. He was holding Temi in his arms. Her eyes were closed, and blood stained her beige shirt. Her legs and arms were limp, and she wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Chapter 15
My knees weakened, and I had to brace myself against the wall. Dust and pebbles dribbled away beneath my fingers, but I scarcely noticed. “Is she…?”
“Alive, yes,” Alek said firmly. “Injured.”
I closed my eyes, relieved even though I had no idea how bad the injuries were. As long as she was alive, there was hope.
“I did not see the sword,” Alek added, tilting his head toward the rubble behind him. The stone and wood and roof material had been pushed aside; he must have been pulling Temi out even as I had been helping with the person inside. I wanted to say the hell with the sword, but if we lost it, we lost our only chance to stop that monster. “Take her out front, please. To one of the ambulances. She’s going to need to go to the hospital. I’ll tell Simon to look for the…”
A black-clad specter appeared out of the alley behind Alek. Two of them.
Eleriss’s jacket and cap were covered with dust, as if he had been caught in the explosion too. Maybe he had. Jakatra’s face could have been carved in stone for all it showed of his thoughts. He took a step toward Alek—or maybe toward Temi—but stopped when Alek glowered in his direction. There was something in Jakatra’s hand. It took me a second to realize it was the little blue device he had shown us. The real one, I suspected, catching a whiff of the pungent odor he had promised it emitted. It had the sulphuric taint of rotting eggs. Had he found it in the rubble? Maybe it had been in this building before the explosion went off.
Jakatra barely seemed to know he was holding it. He spoke a rapid stream of words in his own tongue, his violet eyes intense as they regarded Eleriss.
Eleriss nodded, then pointed to Temi. “Please take her to your conveyance. It is likely we can heal her injuries more quickly than your people.”
Alek shook his head. I understood his mistrust, but if the elves had healed Temi’s knee when the best surgeons in the world couldn’t, I was inclined to believe they would be more help here. Besides, with all of those people that had been delivered to the hospital in the last hour, there might not even be a bed available for Temi there.
“They’re our best bet,” I told him in Greek, then switched back to English for the elves. “Alek couldn’t find the sword.”
“It is not here,” Eleriss said, his tone as flat and grim as Jakatra’s usually was. “I failed to… keep track of Yesathra. No, that’s untrue. I was occupying her, but I failed to realize she has an accomplice here on Earth.”
Jakatra pointed at Temi, then jerked his hand in the direction of the road block. Or maybe our van.
Eleriss spoke another string of words, which resulted in an angry response from Jakatra, but ultimately, Jakatra stalked off, heading in the other direction.
“Come,” Eleriss said, waving toward
the road that ran behind the buildings, paralleling the main street. “We will help Artemis. He will search for the sword. It has not yet left this world, so there may still be time, although…” He was already walking, and I hurried to catch up, even as I pulled out my phone to let Simon know where we were going. After a moment of hesitation, Alek followed after us.
A soft groan escaped Temi’s lips. Even if it sounded pained, I found it encouraging. Maybe she would come around to consciousness soon.
“Do you want help?” I asked Alek. We had moved past the rubble, but Temi wasn’t exactly a tiny waif of a woman. Her six feet had to make carrying her awkward, especially when Alek had her in his arms instead of over his shoulder.
He shook his head at my offer and walked more quickly, catching up with Eleriss and matching his stride.
“Although what?” I prompted Eleriss, since he hadn’t finished his statement on his own.
“It would be unwise for us to openly confront the portal authorities.”
“When I point out how unwise something would be, it usually means I’m going to do it, anyway. Any chance, that’s what you two are thinking?”
He gave me a sad look. “No.”
“So if Jakatra locates the sword, and it’s in Green Eyes’ hands, it will be up to us to try and steal it back?”
“Yes.”
Great. This day was getting better and better.
Eleriss turned toward the main street. At first, I assumed he would cross it and head down to the creek, so he could return to the van in the same way that we had come. The idea of Alek carrying Temi down that embankment made me grimace. But Eleriss turned onto the main street as soon as we reached the corner, striding down the sidewalk, not worrying about witnesses. Granted, the only ambulance remaining was in front of the destroyed T-shirt shop, and only a few police cars were in sight, but that roadblock was probably still in place. There wasn’t any traffic driving through town.
“Uh, there’s a police barricade that way,” I said. If they saw us carrying Temi, they might force us to take her to the hospital whether the elves thought they could help her on their own or not.