“You knew, too, didn’t you? Well, what if-” Under her gaze, he felt timid, fragile. “What if the lonely days for both of us were gone?”
At the fourteenth floor, Cal discovered the stairwell no longer blocked. He and Colleen took the rest of the journey upward inside the belly of the building, and so were able to recover strength. A service shaft on the top floor led to the roof. Crouching within the low structure, Cal insisted on taking point. So he was the first onto the roof, cracking open the shaft cover, hauling himself across the raised lip and stealthily dropping down.
He was surprised at the jumble that greeted him: a ram-shackle penthouse of wood frame and glass that had seen better days; hulking, water-rotted packing crates; corroded fuel drums; big squares of tarpaper curling leprously across the deck.
His eyes scanned the dark contours, searching. A blue glimmering caught his eye. On the far side of the roof, maybe a hundred feet off, a pale nimbus, and in its midst the frail, prone form of his sister. Backlit by the gleam, turned from him, hunkered the brute shape of what could only be Stern.
Keeping low, Cal crept forward. He could sense Colleen close behind, unslinging her bow. Approaching, he discerned the croon of Stern’s voice on the wind. “Away from this sinkhole, soaring like two damn prehistoric hawks. . to the west.”
Tina rose up on her elbows, the sickly blue radiance like mold glow on her. Her eyes were on Stern, she had not yet seen Cal. “There’s a wave.”
Stern straightened with excitement. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. You saw it, too.”
“To the west and,” Tina’s voice came haltingly, Cal had to strain to hear it, “and the south, like an artery pulsing off it.”
“We’re tuned to the same station, sweetpea. The whatever that caused all this, it’s calling us.” Stern stood and stretched hugely, gazed out over the changed, dark city, the East River beyond. “Soon we’re gonna own the world.”
Another wave crashed upon Tina, and she crumpled with a strangled cry. The St. Elmo’s fire flickered down to a mute guttering that licked at her skin. Her strange aqua eyes found Stern again, held on him as she whispered, “I don’t want your world.”
With a surprising burst of strength, she bolted upright, made a stumbling dash along the edge away from him, toward the open drop between buildings.
Stern gasped in alarm, shot an arm toward her, but she was beyond his reach.
Unmindful of himself, Cal shouted, “Tina, don’t!” Hearing him, she stopped, wheeled around, nearly pitching off the side. But she righted herself, just barely, and sank to one knee.
Stern too had swiveled to face Cal. “If you’d shown this much initiative on the job, I’d never have fired you.” He took a single murderous stride toward Cal and drew in a deep, merciless breath.
The arrow caught Stern just above the collarbone, spun him so that the torrent of flame missed Cal by a good three feet. It raked across the tarpaper, igniting it.
Cal dove behind an exhaust outlet, saw that Colleen had managed to take cover behind a pile of crates. Stern rained a flamethrower stream of crackling green hellfire on her.
The crates burst alight in a glorious, mad consumation that no natural source could any longer have kindled, only Stern or some devil-kissed thing like him. Colleen scrabbled back quickly, gained shelter behind a concrete stanchion. Stern closed on her, the endless exhalation blasting the concrete white hot, fiery contrails ricocheting off it. Colleen struggled to reload her crossbow, lift it to aim, but the onslaught was too fierce; it drove her back against the roof’s edge.
Stern swept aside the melted stanchion, exposing Colleen, leaving her defenseless. Cal took a running leap off the exhaust outlet and landed atop Stern’s back. Stern screamed in fury. Twisting and bucking, he shot flame from his mouth like napalm, slashing across the roof. The penthouse caught like an oil-soaked rag, rusty drums detonated in volcanic plumes.
Then Stern’s firestream cut off at last. Stern cursed and spun, trying to reach behind him, fling Cal off. But Cal dug his fingers into the armored ridges of Stern’s shoulders, held on fiercely. The roof was an inferno now, sheets of angry flame dodging about them. Frantically, Cal sought out Colleen and Tina but couldn’t see them as he careened atop Stern.
“Get off me!” Stern shouted as they lurched toward the edge. He leaned sideways like a swooning man and plunged over the side. Cal clutched Stern’s neck, clinging to him. He heard a scream-Tina’s-but it was swallowed in the wind that pummeled him. His stomach rose nauseatingly as the building fell away.
The black street rushed at them. Cal felt a ripple of powerful muscle beneath him, Stern’s great wings unfurled with a snap like a bedsheet, and they were soaring, whirling and swooping, rocketing crazily above Fifth, the dark towers on either side grim cliff faces, dizzying blurs. Stern’s wings pounded as Cal clasped the leathery furrows of skin, tightened his legs about Stern’s massive waist. Harsh, staccato rasps were coming off Stern, beast sounds that might have been crazy, raging laughter.
Abruptly, Stern veered sideways, rammed into a building face, scraping along its edge. The impact flared pain flash-bulb bright behind Cal’s eyes, and he was flung loose, only saving himself by grasping a spur of bone projecting from Stern’s spine. He clambered back, again locked his legs, hunkered down close.
Stern howled, threw himself from side to side against the buildings as they whipped by. The blood was loud in Cal’s ears; he snatched breath as the wind tore past. And then Stern tilted up sharply, soared above the level of the buildings, wings hammering the air as he rose.
Stern slashed through the night sky, climbing fast, dozens, then hundreds of feet above the tallest spire. They were almost dead vertical. Cal grasped Stern as though trying to merge with him as the world fell away.
They pierced a cloud, and Cal felt the damp kiss of fog on his face. The steady rise and fall of Stern’s respiration throbbed beneath him like a huge bellows, and he found himself matching his breathing to Stern’s.
Almost lazily, Stern angled over, dipped below the cloud layer. He was gliding now, banking in a wide, descending spiral.
Then he folded his wings and dived.
The change was so abrupt, it caught Cal unawares. Blood rushed to his head, he fought to keep from blacking out. They were spinning, shrieking downward. Cal felt his body lighten, the pull of gravity ripped away under their savage velocity. In a rush, he saw clearly Stern’s intention to hurtle toward the pavement, then pull up at the last minute, certain the momentum would wrench Cal free, smash him into the asphalt like an offending bug.
Stern was screaming now, a primal howl that matched the wind and challenged it. Cal found himself screaming, too, but he couldn’t hear it over the din, only feel the raw outrage in his throat. Fighting down vertigo and panic, Cal made out a blazing rectangle rising swiftly to meet them, knew it for the roof of the Stark Building.
A sudden, desperate hope seized him. Stern was slowing his rate of spin now, gauging his target. Cal held his breath as the rooftop neared. He locked his legs about Stern more firmly, dared to loosen his arms. He sought out the scabbard at his hip, closed a hand about the wrapped leather binding of the hilt, eased out the sword as they thundered down.
The fiery summit was only yards away now, below and to the west of them. In an instant they would sweep past, and the moment would be lost.
Steeling himself, Cal gripped the sword in both hands, raised it high overhead and-with a cry that surged up from the core of him-rammed it between Stern’s wings.
Stern screeched in anguish and surprise as the blade pierced through hide and meat, splintered bone. Blood geysered up, drenching Cal in a sickening hot stench. Stern’s wings spasmed, flapping reflexively as he curled in on himself, tumbling.