The Shadow City Read online

  She had never been in freefall before. She didn’t mind roller coasters, but she’d never gotten anywhere near those rides that took you up eight or ten stories just to drop you.

  Now the wind was screaming past her face, and the tears in her eyes were crystallizing, and she realized part of the reason she was having a hard time hearing Kaz was that she was screaming, too, and had been since they’d begun falling.

  Wild-eyed, she looked around. Far above her was Jackson, still passed out, and below him was Brett, also still unconscious. Kaz was closest to her, his arms and legs flailing.

  I have to stop this. I have to stop this! But the falling sensation made it impossible to concentrate—and she knew she was about to die. She and all three of the boys were going to slam into the ground at hundreds of miles an hour, and there’d be so little left of them the police would have to mop them up with buckets.

  Kaz’s hand clamped down around her upper arm and pulled until they were face-to-face. “Lily! I’m not strong enough to help, and Jackson and Brett are both out! You’ve got to do it!”

  They plunged into the clouds. Water droplets pounded into their skin, stinging like tiny needles.

  “I . . . I can’t! I don’t know how! I can’t breathe!” Her asthma had returned in full force, crushing her lungs, choking her.

  The sky opened up as they dropped below the cloud cover, and San Francisco spread out below them, a deadly tapestry of concrete and steel.

  Kaz grabbed her head with both hands. “I know you can! You’re bound to air! You have to use your power, or there’ll be no one to save Gabe—and the Dawn will win!”

  Oh God. He’s right.

  I’ve got to do this.

  I CAN do this.

  I CAN DO THIS!

  Kaz turned his face away from the sudden silver-white glare of Lily’s eyes as they fell past the top floors of a skyscraper. Her voice thundered like a sonic boom: “I AM BOUND TO AIR!”

  A cyclone twisted and shrieked below them, rising up around them, its walls thick with dirt and debris. Lily could sense all four of their bodies as the air found her and her friends, surrounding and cradling them as their velocity dropped, the speed draining away even as the walls of the cyclone kept them from being seen.

  The twister slowed and dissipated as Lily, Kaz, Brett, and Jackson touched down in a vacant lot surrounded by a high chain-link fence. As soon as Lily’s feet touched the ground, she rushed to Brett.

  A tiny laugh escaped her lips when she saw his eyes flutter open. He sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ow. My head hurts. Where are we? Oof,” he gasped as Lily crushed him in a hug.

  “Everyone else okay?” she asked, releasing her brother.

  Kaz just nodded at her as he sat and drew in huge lungfuls of air.

  Jackson got unsteadily to his feet. “Good of you to bring us back down into the breathable atmosphere.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why am I soaking wet? Oh. Right. Clouds.”

  Kaz stood up and looked around. “I think we’re actually about a block from my house. Good job picking a landing spot, Lily.”

  Lily spoke to Kaz as she helped Brett to his feet. “You’re the reason we landed instead of going splat. You know that vintage Spider-Man poster you like so much in my room? It’s yours.” As Kaz grinned and blushed, Lily turned to her brother.

  “Brett, are you sure you’re okay?” She tried to think of what the symptoms of a concussion were. “Do you have a headache? Blurry vision? We can get you to a hospital . . .”

  Brett stood and patted himself. “No. I think I’m okay. At least I will be.” He whirled on Jackson and grabbed him roughly by his shirt. “Have you been working with the Dawn the whole time, Ghost Boy? Is that why you attacked me?”

  “Release me, you fiend!” Jackson sputtered.

  “Brett.” Lily stooped to pull Brett off Jackson, trying to make her voice sound reasonable. There’d be a time and place to work out this problem between Brett and Jackson, but with Gabe in the hands of the Dawn, Lily knew this was not that time. “Hermano, enough with the fighting. The Dawn’s got Gabe. We need to work together.”

  Brett shrugged off Lily’s grip and jabbed a finger at Jackson. His gaze was as hard as ice, and his voice trembled with fury. “Gabe’s going to have to wait. We’ve got this snake right here to deal with first.”

  Jackson stood up, wincing. His usually chalk-white face was flushed. “Me? It was you who betrayed us all back there. Gabriel, especially.”

  “What are you talking about, you little—”

  Lily moved to face Brett. “Hey! Did you hear me? They’ve got Gabe! We’ve got to go after him!”

  “And I said he could wait!” Brett shouted.

  Lily wasn’t prepared for that. She took a quick step backward as if her brother had shoved her. Brett hadn’t screamed in her face in—she couldn’t remember how long. Not since right after Charlie died, when they were all a little raw and unpredictable.

  Brett wasn’t finished. “This little creep attacked me back there for no reason! You want to know why Gabe got grabbed up? Because of him!”

  Traces of gold glimmered around Jackson’s eyes. “That’s a bald-faced lie! If you seek the serpent in our merry little band, look no further than Brett Hernandez! He was trying to drown Gabriel!”

  Brett fumed and balled his hands into fists. “Oh, please. You’ve been plotting and scheming for a century, and that’s the best lie you can come up with? I was trying to save Gabe from those bats, and I would have, too, if you hadn’t lassoed me and slammed me into the deck!”

  Lily knew Brett would never betray them, and as much of a wet blanket as he could be, she didn’t think Jackson would, either. She was sure this was all some terrible misunderstanding, but they’d all need to calm down and listen to one another before they got to the bottom of it. “Guys, please—” she said, but they both ignored her. She glanced at Kaz and saw that he was on the verge of tears.

  “Gabriel didn’t need rescuing!” Jackson shouted. “He was about to incinerate the entire lot of them! But no, you surrounded him with water so he couldn’t breathe, much less fight, and you just watched as the bats grabbed him up! I only wish I had acted faster. I might have saved him!”

  “You know what I think?” Brett cried. “I think you didn’t want to save him! You wanted him to get captured! That’d be some sweet payback for him trying to chuck you into Arcadia, wouldn’t it?” When Jackson’s eyebrows cranked up, Brett said, “You didn’t think anybody else knew about that, did you? Gabe hoped that sending you in would bring his uncle back. I saw it happen from the other side!”

  Lily felt a deep hole open up inside her. Gabe wouldn’t . . .

  “I need Gabriel to destroy Arcadia!” Jackson bellowed. “I need all of you! I want to destroy the Eternal Dawn more than anything! What do you want, Brett? What made you try to drown someone who is supposed to be your friend?”

  Brett turned in a circle, rubbing his temples like all of this was giving him a terrible headache. Lily thought it looked like a gesture their dad would make—not her thirteen-year-old brother. Then suddenly he stopped and pierced Lily with a fierce look. “Lil, you don’t believe him, do you? You know I’d never hurt Gabe! I’d never hurt any of you!” Brett cut his eyes toward Jackson. “Not even him. No matter how much I might want to.”

  Lily barely heard him. She was stuck on what he’d said about Gabe trying to push Jackson into Arcadia. Had Gabe really done that? . . . Was that why the ritual on Alcatraz went so wrong? That meant the breach was Gabe’s fault! Pain speared through her chest, and she took several deep breaths.

  She shook her head. They would have to get to the bottom of this later. The Dawn had Gabe, and she was sure they had nothing good planned for him. The clock is ticking, so first things first! This fighting between Brett and Jackson had to end, and she seemed to be the only one who could see that.

  “You would have a difficult time hurting me, you honorless ruffian,” Jackson said.
Golden light burst across his irises as he closed in on Brett.

  “Enough!” Lily shouted, and with a detonation of air, she knocked the two boys away from each other and back to the ground. “Look, Jackson,” she said in a calmer voice. “I don’t know exactly what went on back there on the yacht. I don’t know what you saw, or what you thought you saw. But I do know that Brett would never have tried to hurt Gabe. And he sure wouldn’t want Gabe to get captured.”

  “Yeah,” Brett sneered. “We’ve got these things called contact lenses in the twenty-first century, Ghost Boy. Maybe you need some.”

  Jackson made a growling sound in his throat and appeared to be on the verge of speaking. Instead, he stood and stomped away from them, ripping a hole in the chain-link fence with a motion of one hand and a flare of golden light.

  Kaz spoke up, dabbing at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. “Where do you think he’s going?”

  Lily shrugged. “Not far. We’re the only people he knows.” Unpleasant as he was, she couldn’t help but feel bad for Jackson. Lily didn’t think he’d betray them any more than Brett would. She and Kaz and Gabe and Brett were all he had.

  How lonely that must be.

  An idea seemed to occur to Kaz, and he started rummaging through his backpack as Lily turned to Brett. “We can’t let him sulk for too long,” she said. “We need to go after Gabe.”

  Brett nodded. “Absolutely. Now that the Dawn has both Gabe and the Emerald Tablet, they’ve gotta be planning to exchange Gabe for that founder guy. Just like they tried with Dr. Conway.”

  Lily shuddered as memories of the ritual in that gilded theater came back to her. The chanting cultists, the silver dagger, the blood cocoon spreading across Dr. Conway’s body. Is that going to happen to Gabe, too? No. No, they couldn’t let it. She couldn’t let it. “Thorne. Jonathan Thorne. Gabe’s great-great-great whatever.”

  “Right. And somebody that powerful? Who knows what he could do if they brought him to Earth. That could be the end of . . . well, everything. So, yeah. We go collect Ghost Boy and rescue Gabe, because as soon as we get Gabe back, the five of us can get rid of Arcadia once and for all. Destroy it.”

  Lily frowned and put a hand on Brett’s forearm. “Hang on. Dr. Conway is still there. And Gabe’s mom, too. You said you met her. What about them?”

  Brett’s expression darkened. “Nobody said it would be pleasant.” Lily pulled back in shock, and he must have noticed, because his tone suddenly lightened a lot. “I mean, it might still be possible to get them back through the breach. I’m not saying we won’t try. Of course we will.”

  Kaz spoke up. “Uh . . . guys? Speaking of getting rid of Arcadia and all, I figured I’d better make sure I still had everything we need for the ritual.” He patted his backpack. “And, well, you know that ring, the one with Jackson’s family crest? Yeah. It’s gone.”

  Brett whirled around. “What do you mean, it’s gone?” He snatched the backpack out of Kaz’s grip and began to tear through it. “Where is it? Did you leave it back at Argent Court? Please tell me it didn’t fall out somewhere while we were in the sky!”

  “Brett, it’s not like Kaz lost it on purpose! Calm down!” Lily said. “Just think, Kaz. Where’s the last place you saw it?”

  Kaz squinted. “Well, we were all in the dining room, talking about it, then the doorbell rang, and—oh no. Oh crap. Guys, I put it in the pocket of my hoodie!”

  Brett frowned impatiently. “Okay. So where’s your hoodie? We need that ring or the ritual won’t work!”

  “It’s—I, uh. I gave it to the apographon.”

  Brett grabbed a double handful of his hair and pulled it, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. Kaz looked totally crestfallen, and Lily put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay. What matters is that we know where the ring is. Once we rescue Gabe, we’ll come back and get it.”

  “No,” Brett spoke flatly. No room for discussion. “We get the ring now.”

  “But, Brett, Gabe is—” Lily started.

  “Like Kaz said, we’re only a block from his house. We’re getting the ring first. Right now.”

  There was no arguing with him. She could tell. Lily didn’t like it, but she nodded.

  They trudged in an uncomfortable silence that made Lily extremely relieved when she spotted Kaz’s house ahead.

  The Smith residence was a fairly big place, a stand-alone two-story home, but it definitely qualified as a “fixer-upper.” Someone had been working on replacing some rotten planks on the front porch, and a hammer, box of nails, a saw, and two sawhorses still stood there beside the front door.

  Jackson wrinkled his nose and said, “People actually live here?” and then, “Ow!” as Lily punched him in the shoulder.

  “It’s no Argent Court.” Kaz sounded as if he were mustering up every bit of pride he had. “But it’s my house. You can sit out here on the curb if it offends you so much.”

  Jackson harrumphed, but he stayed with the group. Lily had been right—when Jackson had stormed off, he hadn’t gone far. They’d found him standing in front of an electronics store, staring at the display of TVs. Now he walked along with the rest of them as they approached the Smith home.

  “Come on,” Kaz said. “Nobody ever goes in the front. And remember, nobody goes in at all until we figure out where Fake Kaz is.”

  Kaz led the way up the driveway, through a wooden gate, and along a path of stepping-stones through the grass to the rear of the house. Lily had been here many times before and knew there was a big picture window there that looked directly into the dining room. She couldn’t begin to count how many dinners she and Brett had shared with Kaz’s family. It was early afternoon, so everyone should be either at work or in school—but suddenly Kaz, a few paces ahead of her, hissed and threw his arms out, motioning for them all to stop.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  Kaz’s face had gone pale. He crouched down and crept up to the picture window, and Lily, Brett, and Jackson all followed suit. Lily peered over the edge of the windowsill, into the house, and her breath caught in her throat.

  The Smith family—Kaz’s mom and dad, and Kaz’s little sisters, June, Kira, and Carlie—all sat at the dinner table, with what appeared to be a full-blown evening meal spread out in front of them. But none of them were eating. None of them were even moving, except to throw anxious glances at the doorway to the kitchen.

  “What are we looking at?” Jackson whispered irritably. “Why are your relatives having supper at midday?”

  Fake Kaz—the apographon—entered the dining room, carrying a big tray overloaded with mashed potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce. He still wore Kaz’s hoodie. He set the tray down in front of Mr. Smith and, with a far-too-wide grin, said, “All right! Eat up!” The words were muffled through the glass of the window, but Lily heard them clearly enough.

  Kaz groaned, “Oh no . . .”

  Mr. Smith started to stand. Mrs. Smith, sitting next to him, grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back down. “Taylor. No. Don’t.”

  Mr. Smith never took his eyes off Fake Kaz. “I have to.” He pushed his chair back and stood. Fake Kaz stared at him as he did it, the eerie grin twitching at the corners. Mr. Smith said, “Enough is enough. You can’t keep us here forever.”

  Fake Kaz’s grin began to tremble. Lily sucked in a sharp breath as two translucent, shimmering heads vibrated out from Fake Kaz’s, one on either side. One looked like Greta Jaeger. The other looked like Aria, Gabe’s mother. Fake Kaz lifted his arms, and two other sets of arms sprouted from his torso, one above the real limbs, one below. The phantom limbs twitched and shook and extended, growing spindly and grotesque, their fingers stretching to horrible sharp points.

  “No!” Fake Kaz shouted, in a voice made up of real Kaz’s and Greta’s and Aria’s. “No! You sit down! We will always be a family!” One set of spindly, bony hands settled onto Carlie’s shoulders. Kaz’s littlest sister gave one wracking sob befor
e she choked her tears off.

  Lily stared in horror. Every personality that had occupied the apographon was manifesting at the same time—and that cluster of personalities seemed to have veered into madness.

  June and Kira both started crying, and Mr. Smith slowly sank back into his chair.

  What do we do? We have to do something! What do we DO?

  From Lily’s left, Brett hissed, “Where’s the real Kaz?”

  The back door of the Smith house slammed open. Before Lily could even react, she saw Kaz come charging through the doorway into the dining room, his hands encased in mounds of rock like twin wrecking balls. His eyes solid slate gray and shimmering with green power, weakness gone, Kaz screamed, “Nobody makes my sisters cry!”

  Kaz slammed his hands together, catching the apographon’s head perfectly between them.

  The head exploded in a shower of splinters and fiery green sparks. Abruptly no more than a collection of broken stone and torn wire, any resemblance to Kaz or Greta or Aria disappeared in an instant. The ruined apographon collapsed to the dining room floor as a mess of rubble loosely wrapped in Kaz’s hoodie.

  The Smith family sat at the table, frozen. Stunned. Staring at Kaz.

  Mr. Smith’s eyes darted from Kaz’s stone-encased fists to the ruined golem and then back again.

  Kaz turned to face them, and let the rocks crumble and fall from around his hands. They landed in two neat piles beside his feet, and he shoved his now-clean hands into his pockets. “So, uh, hey, guys. How’s it going? I mean, wait, no, don’t answer that—I guess I already know.” He sighed. “Listen, I’ve got to tell you a couple things, and believe it or not”—he glanced at the ruins of the apographon—“it gets kinda weird.”

  11

  Gabe stood, silent, as his mother approached him. She was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful. His father thought so, too, and he told her so every chance he got. As she came closer and closer, Gabe realized how small he was. He barely came up to her waist, and when she bent down to hug him, she easily whisked him up off his feet.