Dark Metropolis (20 page)

“
N
an!” Thea flung her arms around her friend. “You’re—you’re
here
!” She pulled back, taking in the dried blood on Nan’s clothes, skimming her fingers over the crusty, ragged bits of Nan’s shirt. “What happened to you?”

“I was shot. But—but I’m all right.”

“Shot?”

“I’m all right,” Nan said insistently, as if she could force it into truth, and quickly she threw her arms around Thea, as if that could make it true, too.

They broke apart again as Gerik, a gun in his hand, muscled his way past a flood of workers to get to Freddy.

“Freddy!” he said, his empty hand flung toward his brother. “Don’t just stand there! We need Rory. Everything’s out of control.”

“I won’t revive him unless you call the guards off and let the workers go,” Freddy said.

“I know
she’s
gotten to you.” It was obvious who “she” was, even though he didn’t look at Arabella. “But there’s no time for you to listen to some foolish radical! She doesn’t know the first thing about running this city.”

“She hasn’t gotten to me,” Freddy said. “It’s you who lied to me my entire life. You told me my magic was saving people, when you’ve exploited them all along. And you were going to let me degenerate until I was an invalid, weren’t you? That’s why you wanted me to have children.”

“Yes, to save you!”

“Save me,” Freddy repeated, his voice dangerously low. “You know this is your chance to redeem yourself, Gerik. To tell me the truth. The only reason you wanted to save me was because you know that if I die, they all die.”

Now Gerik shot a glare Arabella’s way. “Lad, I don’t know what—”

“Don’t ‘lad’ me. I’m not your little boy. I’m the person who holds the fate of all the workers.”

Gerik had barely begun to lift his arm in a direction Arabella apparently didn’t like when she suddenly grabbed Freddy’s arm and pressed the gun to his head. “Gerik, I think you’re just stalling for time now. Listen to the boy, or I’ll take him down with me. If he dies, all the workers will be gone in a blink.”

Thea thought of the gun in her purse, but Arabella kept glancing back and forth, although she always returned to Gerik. She was watching for anyone to make a move. And Thea had never shot a gun before.

“He’s going to kill the workers anyway,” Gerik snapped.

“Gerik!” Freddy sounded briefly hurt. Then his eyes flicked to the corpse of Gerik’s brother on the floor. “You and Uncle can see each other again in hell.”

Thea couldn’t imagine what Freddy must be feeling. Sometimes she had felt so alone, caring for Mother, but it must be far worse to be raised by someone who cared for your power instead of your own self.

Gerik looked as if he’d been struck. “Freddy, I cared for you like a son. I did. But I couldn’t forget why you had come to me. And what do you think will happen when these workers go free? They all run to their families? They have no memories. And they need serum. You know about the serum. They already haven’t had it since breakfast. By tomorrow night the city will be overrun by monsters—or corpses.”

Arabella let Freddy go. “
You
started all of this, Gerik Valkenrath,” she said.

Gerik made a brief motion of his hand, and then he suddenly snatched Thea’s arm, while a guard rushed to grab Arabella before she could react. Now Thea had the cold barrel of a gun pressed to her own temple. Gerik’s fingers were digging into the skin of her upper arm painfully, but she didn’t dare move. Both her father and Nan were standing frozen, separated from her now by the eternal space between a gun and her head.

“Freddy, let’s try this again,” Gerik said. “If you kill all these people, you’re killing the heart of the city. You need to revive my brother and come with me, then I will explain it all to you.” Thea tried to keep still, tried not to think about the metal warming where it touched her.

“I have no reason to trust you anymore,” Freddy said. “And this has nothing to do with Thea. Let her go.”

“Tell me honestly,” Gerik said. “Do you really want to stop using your magic? Can you, even? It’s a gift. It’s what you live for. You know it. You could never really be satisfied tinkering with clocks.”

Freddy shifted his stance slightly, revealing that Gerik had hit upon some truth, but he said, “At least I’d be working with my real father.”

Gerik’s grip on Thea’s arm tightened. He was afraid, too. He knew he was losing. Thea’s eyes flicked to Nan. Thea had always admired Nan’s bravery, but Nan had never looked bloody and broken like this. And Thea’s father? He looked like he wanted to act, but there was a guard standing right behind him, glaring and obvious.

Thea sucked in a breath and threw her weight away from Gerik, twisting her arm against his grasp.

Freddy shoved a guard out of the way and lunged for Gerik’s arm, trying to get the gun. Thea’s father ran to her. “Are you all right, Thea?”

“Fine.”

“Gerik, please,” Freddy said, suddenly lifting his hands. Gerik still had the gun after their struggle. “Is this really how you want it to be? Threatening me? Pointing a gun at a girl who just wanted to know where her loved ones went?”

Gerik hissed a curse under his breath, but he sounded defeated. “Damn it, Freddy.” Then he said, “Just let me talk to Rory one last time.”

The workers had been massing around the door of the cafeteria, now barely contained by the guards.

“Tell the guards to leave the workers alone,” Freddy told Gerik. “Then I’ll revive, one last time.”

“Fine,” Gerik said. “You heard him. Let them go.”

The guards lowered their weapons.

This was it now.

The beginning of the end.

T
hea turned to Nan. She didn’t want to think about Nan wearing a bloody work suit, Nan doomed to death like everyone else. She had no words.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, even though those words didn’t feel right, either.

Nan drew back. She had an odd smile. “I’m not going to die,” she said.

“You’re…not?”

“I’ll explain later,” she said. She looked behind her at the girl in the cage.

“Who is that?” Thea asked.

“That’s Arabella’s daughter…Sigi.” Nan swallowed, as if struggling to find words. “They didn’t give her serum for a couple of days, to punish her, so she degenerated, and she’s coming out of it. But she’s still—she—she was my best friend down here, and maybe more.”

“Nan…” This wasn’t like Nan. She didn’t seem empty anymore. “Oh, Nan…” Thea put her arms around her friend again. She didn’t know what to say. Sigi was going to die, and maybe she wouldn’t even be well enough to say good-bye. Thea could imagine nothing worse than seeing a loved one turn into a horror like the man in the tunnels.

Nan finally shoved her away gently. “I’ll be all right. You should go with your father. I’ll find you later.”

Freddy had walked toward them as they talked, his face drawn. “Thea, you should take your father and go. I still have to revive Uncle and make sure they don’t try to stop the escape. I know where you live. Wait for me at your apartment.”

She searched his face, wondering if she’d ever see it again. But she understood that they each had a task, and neither one of them would have peace until it was done. She took one of his hands and one of Nan’s. “Stay safe, both of you.”

Nan forced a smile. “I will if you will.”

Thea hurried back to Father’s side, and they started to walk out together with the crowd. The way out was clear now; she didn’t even see the guards around anymore. Maybe they were planning on skipping town before things got ugly for them, too. A few of the workers, talking to one another excitedly about seeing the sky, quickened their steps, but others were very quiet and solemn, and she wondered if they were the ones who guessed at the truth, the way her father had.

Father glanced at her. “So you’re pretty close with that Freddy, aren’t you?” He sounded like he was trying to cover concern with a teasing tone, and that was so like him that it hurt.

She looked down, making a feeble attempt to brush grime off her coat. “Sort of. We’re only just getting to know each other, really, but it’s been so intense.” She hastily added, “I mean all of this. Rescuing you and everyone else. Not us. I haven’t even kissed him yet. I mean, we’re not—”

“Yet, eh?” He smiled. “You don’t have to explain. I know we don’t have enough time to say everything. I guess no one ever does. But you look well.”

Well.
It seemed such a weak word to describe anything. But it was true—there never was enough time or enough words to say everything.

As they walked, she tried to sum up the past eight years. Good things first. They still had the same apartment. Rationing had ended. They all missed him very much, but they managed. As she spoke, bad things wormed their way to the surface: Mother’s illness and Thea’s having to leave school…He was so familiar and so distant at once, and she felt like he ought to know it all already. When he started asking questions about his life with her and her mother, she didn’t know how to answer.

“We’re going to try to find her,” Thea said. “I’m sure you’ll remember her better when you see her.”

“Sometimes I see her face in my dreams,” he said. “I can’t wait to remember the woman it belongs to.”

They emerged into what appeared to be a cellar. She heard shouting somewhere above her head, and footsteps thumping on the floor. So many workers were trying to escape up this single staircase that everyone was backing up into the cellar like herded cattle.

People were still cramming in behind her, faster than they could move ahead. She was pressed against the wall.
The room was quite stuffy, but there wasn’t enough space for her to get her coat off.

Her father called down, “Wait! There’s no room!”

“What’s going on?” called one of the men halfway up the stairs. “We all want to get out of here! There are still more coming!”

“Please, stay calm!” Thea said, feeling the mounting panic in the narrow space. “There will be help coming outside. Break the windows!” she shouted upstairs. “Get out of the house any way you can, as quickly as you can!”

Just above her head, the lights flickered as the bottleneck on the stairs began to ease.

She clutched her father’s hand tighter and pushed her way forward.

N
an watched the workers flow past her, to see the sky, to breathe fresh air.

Sigi was curled up in the cage, face to the wall, breathing raggedly. Arabella had the door open and was trying to coax her out. “Sigi, darling? Please. It’s all right. Please look at me.”

Sigi didn’t respond. Nan remembered when Helma was in the cage and Sigi told her not to look.
I’d hate being looked at if—

Freddy was crouching, placing his hands on Rory. The older man stirred to life. He seemed angry at Freddy, but Gerik said, loud enough for Nan to hear, “I begged him to! I wanted a chance to say good-bye to you, damn it!”

A moment later, Freddy left them alone. He glanced around, saw Nan looking at him, and smiled faintly, awkwardly.

“You do have a gift, you know,” she said.

“Huh.” He looked skeptical.

“You allow people to say good-bye.”

Freddy glanced back at Gerik and Rory. Now they appeared to be arguing, in a quiet way. “For what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot.” Her eyes wandered, almost against her will, back to Arabella, keeping watch over Sigi.

“Your friend?” Freddy asked more gently.

“Something like that….” Nan’s mouth twisted briefly. “I don’t have much to go home to.”

“Thea’s missed you terribly,” he said. “She talked about you all the time.” He raised his eyebrows. “But I know exactly what you mean. For what that’s worth.”

“That’s worth a lot, too.” She chewed her lip. Thea would need her. It helped, to tell herself that someone would need her and love her.

“Mother?” Sigi’s bleary voice jolted Nan’s attention. Sigi’s curls stirred on the floor, and then she drew herself into a sitting position. Her face looked drawn but Sigi-like once again.

“Sigi?” Arabella reached to smooth her daughter’s wayward hair.

Sigi’s eyes darted to Nan and then away again, and she shuddered. “Mother—”

“Please listen, Sigi. I know we’ve never gotten along, but I need to say good-bye to you,” Arabella said. “I wasn’t a very good mother. I know. I’ve always been so obsessed with the resistance. But when you disappeared, it became—more meaningful. The least I could do, in the end, was to have vengeance for you.”

“Oh,
Mother
,” Sigi whispered. She drew herself into a hunched position, letting her hair hide her face.

“When you were gone, my dearest girl, oh—forgive me, but I read all your diaries and papers, and I realized how much we have in common that I never knew. How bright you are—”

“My diaries!” Sigi moaned. “Please stop. I don’t want to remember. Those were—they weren’t for you to see.”

“But I was grateful for those diaries, Sigi. I needed to understand you. The things you’d never told me. The things you cared about. The reasons you took your own life. We’re more alike than I ever realized. I know I’ve made such awful mistakes. How can I make you understand how much I love you?”

“You could have cared more when I was actually alive.” Sigi grabbed her mother’s arm. “Mother, I do love you. Of course I do. But you never really listened to me. You wanted me to be someone I never was. Even now you’re telling me I’m more like you than you ever thought? That was the problem. You only loved me when I was
like
you. You didn’t want a daughter who was stocky and didn’t care about fashion. Who liked sad poetry and slapstick comedy. Who could be horribly shy and hated having a fuss made over her. And why would I want you to have vengeance for me? If you read my diaries, you’d know that I’m a pacifist!”

“Well, I—” Arabella faltered.

“She wasn’t all wrong, Sigi,” Nan said. “Something had to be done to save all of us, and your mother did it. She was wrong about some things, but not that.”

Sigi finally looked at Nan again. “Nan…I’m sorry about everything. I must have been…so awful. I remember it, even though it seemed like it wasn’t me at all.”

Nan took a step closer to her. “It wasn’t you.” She crouched in front of Sigi and took her hand. “We don’t have much time, so I just want you to know…” All the things she felt weighed upon her, and Arabella’s and Freddy’s presence froze her words. She would never have the time alone with Sigi that she wished for, so she just had to say something. “Your kiss is the color green. When I was lying there, half dead, I thought of you, and I saw it. It was familiar…and beautiful.”

“Is it really true?” Sigi whispered. “You really can’t see
colors?”

“Only that one. But I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget you.” Now the memory of green was like the feeling of sadness. A single color in her vision, a single emotion in her heart.

“Oh, Nan…” Sigi slowly looked around, as if she had a sudden new awareness of her surroundings. “I’m going to die down here without seeing the sunrise, aren’t I?”

“No. We’ll get you out of here.” Nan looked behind her. An endless stream of workers moved slowly down the hall.

Sigi shook her head. “It’s all right. I don’t want to fight my way through that. You could get hurt.” She wiped her nose. “You’ll stay with me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“No!” Arabella suddenly whirled on Freddy. “I won’t let you take her.” She grabbed his arm. “You can’t take her!”

“Mother, stop that! For heaven’s sake, he isn’t the Grim Reaper!”

“No!
This isn’t right. I’m your mother. My life is already past its prime. I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do, and then some, and I don’t even know what I’m good for anymore. You’re so young. You have so much to do, so much to experience.” She shook Freddy again. “Take me. Take me in her place.”

“I can’t defy death,” Freddy said. “You certainly agreed on that point up until now.”

“This is different,” Arabella said. “I know a soul must go to its death. I know there has to be a sacrifice. That’s why I’m willing to make it. Maybe I wasn’t a very good mother in life, but I can be one now. Freddy…you can do it. I know you can. You can bring
taxidermy
to life. What can’t you do, when it comes to the business of death?”

“Freddy…you can’t—can you?” Nan’s voice was shaking. She didn’t want to let herself hope for more time with Sigi. A life with Thea and Freddy and
Sigi
. They had all been through so much, and they could all be together.

She briefly shut her eyes. It wasn’t right to ask any more of Freddy.

“I don’t know how difficult the spell will be,” Freddy said. “But I’m willing to try.”

“You don’t even know me,” Sigi said. “I can’t ask you to do something like that!”

“But I want Thea to be happy. And Thea cares for Nan. And Nan clearly cares for you. So I almost know you.” He turned to Arabella. “Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“Mother, you can’t do this.” Sigi finally got to her feet.

“Go see thousands of sunrises, Sigi,” Arabella said.