The Drowned Vault (39 page)

Long ago, Harriet and Circe Smith, Lawrence’s sisters, had stubbornly died rather than serve Phoenix. And Lawrence himself had turned away from the Order and its enemies completely. He had walked away from everything, from his history, from his blood, from his friends, from the treasures accumulated by generations of Smiths—all for a girl with eyes like jungle shade. And in that, he had acted like a true Smith. Like the Captain had acted when he’d Buried himself. Like dozens of others had acted before him. Smiths always seemed to be turning their backs on something, and frequently everything.

Phoenix was surprised by the chuckle that sprung from his own throat.

Now Lawrence Smith would turn his back on death.

Phoenix studied the floating man with his icy skin and bullet-puckered chest. Even a once great Explorer
of the Order of Brendan could be struck down by a few flying shards of metal—bullets from a gun—and then swallowed by the cold water of the Pacific. The soul fled the body so easily. It was a flaw that could be mended.

The third convict Phoenix had tried to use now lay dead beside Lawrence’s pool—dead as quickly as the others, and there weren’t many more. It was a puzzle. Lawrence had been friends with Skelton. He’d had rogues for friends planet-wide. A convict should have been sufficient.

Phoenix couldn’t change a corpse. He needed Lawrence alive before he could make any improvements. And of course, the improvements would kill him again. So Phoenix needed two human batteries before Lawrence would become the Lawrence he wanted. He had one, but if he used him now, he might not be able to find another. Why go to the trouble of bringing Lawrence back and improving him, only to shove him back into a freezer?

Frustrated, Phoenix slapped at the water in the pool with the end of his cane. The splash spattered onto his hand and wrist, and for a moment, he was surprised at how cool the water had become. Lawrence’s body was thawing.

Phoenix beckoned to the two men who had stayed with him, both freshly born into bestial speed and bestial
strength. One was curiously fingering the gills on the side of his neck.

“Get rid of this body,” Phoenix said, kicking the dead convict at his feet. “Bring me Alfred Mist.”

The men jumped forward and picked up the body. Phoenix turned to the little Mist girl, asleep in her chair in the corner, head lolling. Pythia was on the floor beside her.

The little girl would want to see her father die. Phoenix hobbled over and raised his cane to wake her, then paused. Waking her would just mean more kicking and screaming. He lowered his cane. The girl didn’t need to see anything.

Antigone pressed a cold glass bottle of soda against her split lower lip. She was in the cabin of an old airplane that reminded her of the lobby of the Archer Motel.

The five seats in the cabin were cream leather, cracked with time. Behind her, there was a little bathroom with a carpeted wall and a mirror dotted with gold fleck. In front of her, past a little metal Coke cooler full of drinks, Rupert Greeves sat in the copilot’s chair wearing a headset. He was arguing with Liv, the crazy old woman with the long white scarf and long, caramel-colored coat flying the plane. It was incredibly hot in the cabin. Antigone didn’t understand how the lady could stand to be in her coat. It had one patch on its shoulder—a green shield
with a woman riding a jumping dolphin stitched in white thread.

It was hard to say what the strangest part of the day had been. It should have been the dragon, or seeing the moving shapes that Arachne had woven into her shirt. But the strangest part had actually been racing through New York City with Rupert. After a year at Ashtown, Antigone had almost forgotten that she belonged in this world, the one with taxicabs and skyscrapers and hot dog vendors and telephones and overflowing trash cans.

No one had paid any attention to them when they’d been jogging along the sidewalks. That changed when they entered the tall glass building. The lobby was large, marble, and lined with bookshelves behind glass. The only way to get to the elevators had been over the turnstiles and past the security guards.

Rupert hadn’t even hesitated. While people in suits yelled
sir! sir! sir!
he’d hopped the barrier and boarded an elevator, Antigone right behind him. Three floors up, Rupert switched elevators. Three more, and they took the fire stairs up the next four. Sweating and breathing hard, they’d stepped out onto a floor with a small crowd of frustrated people complaining that the elevators had stopped working.

Rupert and Antigone had followed them back into the fire stairs and up to a floor with a bridge to another
elevator lobby. And as if their bloody and torn clothing hadn’t made them conspicuous enough already, the amused and cheerful red-winged blackbird spent the whole time singing on Antigone’s shoulder.

Just thinking about it made Antigone start sweating again. They’d shot up floors, and then had to take the fire stairs again, and then shot up more floors. They’d forced their way into another set of offices and past another set of security guards, and then into a residential block, and finally through a door that had set off alarms as they entered someone’s extremely nice penthouse. A man in a very nice suit was having lunch with some fragile-looking bony women—he was the only one eating.

Rupert had politely said hello, and then pushed past the lunch party out onto the balcony. From there, they’d climbed to a bigger balcony that led to a helicopter pad and one fat security guard, the one that had elbowed her in the face and split her lip.

A strange plane, with a propeller above each wing, had been descending like a helicopter. After they’d boarded and taken off, the propellers had swung down in front of the wings.

The heat in the cabin was stifling. Antigone stood and stretched, then moved forward to the cockpit door. The blackbird was perched on the dash, looking out the windshield.

“Liv, listen to me, love,” Rupert said. His face was slick with sweat. “I need speed. I need it.”

“What is this tone?” the old woman asked. “Where is the young Rupert who was content to enjoy the air and a soda?”

Antigone glanced at the controls. They were at 11,000 feet, flying almost 300 miles per hour. Pretty fast.

“There are times to fly like a grandmother,” Rupert said. “This isn’t one of them.”

“I am not a grandmother,” Liv said. Her voice was accented. She glanced back at Antigone and smiled. Her face was creased, but thin and younger-looking than Antigone had expected. Her teeth were impossibly white, and her eyes were a very Nordic blue, ready to freeze. “I fly like an affectionate aunt.”

“There are too many miles to make up,” said Rupert. “Fly like an affectionate banshee. I know what Thor did to these Rolls-Royce engines before he died.”

“Um,” Antigone said. “Could we turn on some air-conditioning?”

“Heat is healthy,” Liv said. “It stimulates memory and the flow of the bloods.” She looked at Rupert, smiling slightly. Then she unbuckled and slid out from behind the controls. “It also stimulates odor in men.” She patted Rupert’s shoulder. “Fly my plane as you like, Rupert Greeves. Play at banshee with my Thor’s old toy.”

Rupert had already taken the controls.

“Air-conditioning?” Antigone said again.

Rupert nodded, flipping switches.

Antigone went back to her seat. The old woman sat down across from her. She was surprisingly tall—almost Rupert’s height. She stretched out a pair of very long legs that ended in worn knee-high boots.

The whining pitch of the engines shifted. The plane was accelerating.

“So,” said Liv. She smiled with pursed lips, and then crossed her long legs at the knee. “Antigone Smith, is it? And we’re having trouble with the dragons, yes?” She raised her eyebrows and pushed back her gray-blond hair. “It all seems so primitive. One would think the Order could simply move on from such … earthy … conflicts.”

Antigone cocked her head, listening to the woman’s accent. She didn’t recognize it.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

Liv laughed. “Norway, once upon the times. But my Thor loved New York. He left and died. I stayed.” She studied the back of her hand. “The Order, for me, is only memory. I haven’t set foot on an Estate in years. But I pay the dues.” She smiled. “I’m sentimental. But really, all those Explorers milling about training, and for what? At least the medievals had a mission, dreadful as it now seems to modern minds. Still, it was something. Young
Rupe has that in him. He’s terribly … what is it?” She held up her hands on either side of her eyes. “Tunnel-visioned? Blinkered? But I admire his simplicity. He finds importance in his work.”

Liv glanced over her shoulder at the cockpit, then leaned toward Antigone as if she were going to tell her a secret. “When he was younger, I wanted him to call me Auntie Liv.” Liv laughed. “The stubborn boy never would! My Thor had some of the same primitive fire—boys, yes? I couldn’t get it out of them. Thor took Rupert in and oversaw some of his training after his dear parents passed. When I think of what that boy could have achieved outside the Order …”

“What Rupert does is very important,” Antigone said. Her voice was low, almost gruff.

“Ah,” said Liv. “Yes, you would think that, dear one. You’re young, and you’re a Smith. I’d almost forgotten it. The fight, the mission, the fanatic is in your blood.”

Antigone bit her lip and winced from the pain. She stood, bracing herself as the plane shook, then nodded at the cockpit.

“Do you mind if I go up?”

Liv smiled and shook her head. “Go. Sit with your Keeper and plan your wars. I had a long morning in the stables. I will nap.” Her smile was genuine. Antigone felt as if the woman truly liked her, but she also felt more than a little pitied … and not for the right reasons.

While Liv reclined, Antigone moved through the narrow doorway and slid into the empty pilot’s chair. The plane was bouncing hard, tearing through a stretch of rough air. The controls weren’t like in any of the little planes she had flown. They weren’t even like Gil’s plane. She twisted open her soda bottle and set it in a cup holder. Then she slid on a headset.

Rupert flashed her a smile. His voice crackled quietly in her ears.

“What do you think of Auntie Liv?”

Antigone grimaced and stuck out her tongue. “Nice, though,” she added quickly.

Rupert nodded. Antigone scanned the dials. She could hear the low chatter of pilots and air-traffic controllers in the headphones, and wondered how anyone knew whom it was they were talking to. There were a lot more voices than when she cruised around at low altitude over Lake Michigan.

The needle was kissing six hundred miles per hour. They were really hauling, and it felt like it, too. She looked out her side window and back at the big turboprop engine.

“How long till we get there?” she asked.

“Ninety minutes,” Rupert said. “Seventy-five, hopefully. I need a little more altitude, and then I’ll push this Boop harder.”

“Where are we now?” Antigone asked.

A loud voice chirped in her headphones. “This is Andrews Tower. You are entering regulated airspace. Identify and redirect. Repeat. You are entering regulated airspace. Identify and redirect.”

“Washington, D.C.,” Rupert said to Antigone. “Cross all your fingers and your toes.” He held down a switch in front of him. “Andrews Tower, this is Brendan-Zed-one-one-eight. We are clear of your traffic and passing through.”

Antigone looked at Rupert and waited. She didn’t have long to wait.

“Andrews Tower to Brendan-Zed-one-one-eight, you are not cleared to pass through. Repeat, you are not cleared to pass through. Redirect now. Be advised, we will engage.”

Rupert squinted, rubbed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Despite her headphones, Antigone heard a sudden roar even louder than their own engines. To their left, a needle-nosed fighter ripped through the cloud layer and leveled off just off their wing. Beyond it, another jet rose.

“That was quick,” Rupert said. He pushed the switch back down. “Brendan-Zed-one-one-eight to Andrews Tower. Note: Red-Zed on board, Red-Zed, Adams-Jefferson-Madison, one-eight-one-two. Advise.”

Antigone looked from the jets to Rupert and back to
the jets. All the distant pilot chatter in her headphones was gone—the airspace was silent. She wondered how many other pilots were listening in. She waited, and waited, expecting some missile to suddenly smash them out of the sky. Finally, the tower responded, but the voice was now a woman’s.

“Andrews Tower to Brendan-Zed-one-one-eight, you are cleared to continue on. Good luck, Red-Zed. Over.”

“Thank you, Andrews,” Rupert said. “Cheers.” Outside of Antigone’s window, the closer pilot waved, and then the two jets banked hard, disappearing into the clouds.

“What just happened?” Antigone asked.

“We cut five minutes off our flight time,” Rupert said. He laughed. “You can thank the Marquis de Lafayette. After he poured himself into the War for Independence, he wasn’t about to let the O of B support the British in 1812—and the fools would have, too. But Lafayette prevailed upon the Keepers, and the Order tipped battles in New Orleans and Baltimore in America’s favor. In exchange, a grateful President Madison signed a treaty with the Order. Relations have been cautiously maintained ever since.”

Antigone looked out her window. “And they know all that? Down there? Because of something that happened back in 1812, we get to fly where we want?”

Rupert grinned. “Oh, no. All that woman in the
tower knows is that we have the necessary security clearance.”

The bird hopped off the dash and onto Antigone’s shoulder. She looked at her Keeper. “Where
exactly
are we going?”

Rupert’s jaw flexed and his brows lowered slowly.

“To war,” he said. “And that’s as exact as I can be.”

twenty-one
CIGARS