“Yes,” said Istas. She released Margaret—although she didn’t release Margaret’s gun, and from the way Margaret groaned as Istas yanked it away, she broke at least one of Margaret’s fingers in the process—and turned toward Robert. To his credit, he didn’t flinch when Istas reached for his throat with her vast, taloned paw. The chain on his medal snapped easily when she pulled on it. Istas looked at the medal curiously for a moment, then shrugged and tucked it into the neckline of her dress.
“Sarah . . .” I said.
“It’s all right, Verity.” She smiled at me, uncertainly. “I can do this.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“We have no choice,” said Dominic softly. He tightened his arm around me. “They have to live. I have to die. I can’t let them endanger you, or your family. This is the only way.”
“But Sarah . . .”
“Trust her,” said Dominic.
I closed my eyes. “Okay.”
Cuckoos are natural memory manipulators. It’s part of how their power works. They fit into the world without leaving a seam, and that means they have to insert themselves, retroactively, into the lives of every person they meet. It’s an autonomic function most of the time, something that just happens around them, as easy and as natural as breathing. Sarah spent her days working to keep that very thing from happening; she wanted to be known and cared about for who she really was, and not because everyone she met decided that she was their long-lost sister, daughter, or best friend from college.
Even autonomic functions can become intentional, if you’re willing to work for it. I opened my eyes to see Sarah standing in front of Margaret and Robert, her eyes glowing such a brilliant white that it actually chased the black spots away from the edges of my vision. Margaret looked terrified. Robert looked resigned, like this was the fate he had been preparing himself for since the day he reached American soil.
“You’ll pay,” he said, in a calm, quiet tone. “We found you once, and we can find you again. Eventually, your whole stinking family will have to pay for your crimes against the Covenant, and against humanity.”
“Maybe that’s true,” I said, letting myself slump against Dominic. “But you know what? You won’t be the ones to come looking for us.”
“Hold them up,” said Sarah. I think I’m the only one who heard the tremor in her voice.
Istas grabbed Robert while Uncle Mike lowered his crossbow and grabbed Margaret. Sarah reached out and touched their foreheads, making skin contact. Skin contact always made it easier for her. The Covenant agents went limp.
That seemed like a good idea. I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, and I was so tired. I stopped fighting to keep myself upright at all. Staying awake and on my feet didn’t matter. We’d done it. The Covenant didn’t know—wouldn’t know—that the family survived. There would be no purge of Manhattan. We’d won, and that meant that I could rest.
The last thing I heard was Dominic shouting my name. Then there was nothing but the white glare from Sarah’s eyes, chasing away the shadows, and I fell into the light . . .
. . . only to fall back out again as Dominic shoved me away, grabbing the gun from my hand in the same motion (didn’t he already have my gun? Something was wrong, and I couldn’t tell what it was anymore . . .). Sarah was on the floor, clear fluid leaking from a hole at the center of her forehead, and Margaret was somehow free, her own gun aimed at Dominic’s chest. “Traitor!” she shouted, and fired.
For some reason, the servitors were gone. For some reason, nothing moved to stop her when she pulled the trigger. Something should have stopped her. Instead, Dominic staggered back, making a sharp barking noise as the bullet slammed through his collarbone. Then he raised my gun and fired three times, aiming for Margaret, who ducked easily out of the way. One bullet went into Uncle Mike. The other two went into Istas. I knew from past experience that two bullets weren’t going to do much but slow her down.
Slowing her down was more than enough. The force of the bullets knocked her backward and allowed Robert to break free. He spun around, pulling a knife from his belt, and drove it into her throat. Istas keened like a wounded animal, and fell. And all this before I could hit the floor.
I landed hard, my head bouncing off the wood before I managed to catch myself. I raised my head, squinting, in time to see Margaret shoot Dominic again. This time, her aim was better, befitting a Healy girclass="underline" she grouped her shots at the center of his chest, three holes appearing in the fabric of his shirt. He looked surprised. Then he fell, too.
(This is wrong, this is wrong, we don’t lose like this, this is wrong . . .)
I tried to scream, but the air wasn’t there. Margaret smiled as she turned toward me, raised her gun, and pulled the trigger again.
And then there was nothing at all.
Twenty-four
“Don’t you dare leave me, baby girl. There’s been enough dying. Mind your momma, now, and stay.”
Waking up in an unknown location—but at least it isn’t a warehouse somewhere in Manhattan, being held captive by the Covenant of St. George, which makes it a definite improvement (also, not dead)
“NOTHING” LOOKED a lot like the glaring white of an active cuckoo’s eyes. I opened my eyes. The unrelenting whiteness didn’t go away, although it did change forms, becoming the overhead lights which were shining directly down into my face. I groaned and tried to block the light with my arm, only to discover that the various tubes connected to my body made that impossible.
They don’t usually connect tubes to dead people. Not unless they’re preparing them for embalming, and this wasn’t a funeral home. It didn’t smell right for that. I blinked, abandoning my efforts to cover my face. The glare got a little more manageable as my eyes adjusted. Only a little, though. I blinked again, finally settling for squinting through my eyelashes as I tried to get a handle on where, exactly, I was—other than “not dead.”
The memory of being shot the first time, by Peter, was still very vivid and real. The memory of being shot the second time, by Margaret, was already fading like a bad dream. “Dammit, Sarah,” I muttered, and twisted in the bed enough to look around.
It was a small room, with walls painted a cheery shade of eggshell blue and trimmed in even cheerier yellow. Various machines beeped quietly to themselves, monitoring my vital signs. I followed one of the tubes in my arm up to an IV stand, where a bag of clear liquid was presumably responsible for keeping me hydrated. That also explained the weird pinching sensation at my groin; I’d been out for long enough that they’d needed to catheterize me to keep me from wetting the bed. Always the sort of thing a girl wants to wake up to.
On the plus side, nothing hurt. Maybe that meant that I was flying on morphine, but at the moment, I’d take it. It was better than the alternative. Better still would be having some vague idea of where I was. I started looking around for something that looked like a call button.
I was still looking when I heard footsteps. I turned to see Dominic standing in the room’s doorway, white as a sheet and holding onto the lintel for balance. “You are an insufferable woman,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You slept for three days, and then you simply had to wake up during the five minutes that I was out of the room, didn’t you?”