The Woken Gods (35 page)

We pass our first few casualties, and I’m grateful they are facedown – except for a brown-haired girl who might be in college, staring sightless, revealed by an angry red flare.

“Keep your head down,” Oz says.

He navigates Book over to the sidewalk in front of the museums along the left-hand side of the Mall. Smart. He’s keeping us out of the grassy area in the middle where the worst of the conflict is taking place.

The old-fashioned carousel usually in front of the Smithsonian soars in a high arc, smacking into a large god with bat wings. I make out Enki’s horns high above the middle of the green. The area beside him is a great absence of light with rippling edges. It has to be Set, growing more shadows.

The obelisk of the Washington Monument is visible in the distance, but it feels so far away. Oz urges Book forward at a faster pace. “We’ll make it,” Oz says. Maybe he’s reassuring himself.

I’ll never forget the things we pass. It feels wrong, riding on instead of stopping to help people. I remind myself:
You are going to help them
. I close my eyes, but Bronson’s face waits for me there. I open them immediately.

There are a few operatives riding along the middle, attempting to get the crush of people out of harm’s way. One of their horses stumbles, screaming as a god’s elongated hand wraps around its front legs and tugs it down.

The fake sacrificial bonfire smolders, deserted, across from the Smithsonian castle, wreathed in wilting flowers. Where the carousel used to be is nothing but churned earth, spilling over the ground. Ahead of us, a blaze of flame licks through the sky. The ground shakes. There is another flare of light. And another. The screaming only gets louder.

Oz and Book stay calm, focused. We trot along at a fair clip, as far as we can be from the Mall while still riding along it, and Book’s dark coat and our uniforms help to hide us. Except for flashes of fire, the power outage has taken out the streetlights that normally make this a well-lit area. Sticking to the shadows, we make decent progress. Not that I could say how long has passed. Seconds, minutes, hours. Decades.

To get to the Washington Monument itself, we have to leave our relative safety. Book trots onto the grassy slope around it, and my arms tighten around Oz as a large shape lowers into our way.

The god straightens to his full height. It’s Mehen.

Oz trains Book to the left to go around him, but Mehen’s head coils back, his hood flaring on either side of it.

A familiar lion’s snarl accompanies Anzu’s dive from above. He rams into Mehen, cutting off his path to us.

“I have never been so happy to see a monster in my life,” I say.

“Thank him for me later,” Oz agrees.

He spurs Book into a gallop across the open ground. There are no people up here – the Monument itself has been off limits to the public since the Awakening – but spears of light flicker above.

There is a Society guard posted at the base of the monument, the stone shooting high above us. It is surprisingly enormous this close up. In the distance, it seems slender, the sky around it so much larger. Oz greets the guard with, “The board has ordered us to raise the walls.”

Oz urges me down first, and the guard helps catch me. After Oz dismounts, the guard accepts Book’s reins. Apparently watching the mayhem unfold in front of him is enough to sell the story. “Godspeed,” he says to us, without a shred of irony.

We make it into the lobby, where we’re greeted by a bronze statue of George Washington. Oz doesn’t pause on the way to the elevator.

“The power’s out,” I remind him. I point to a crumbly set of roped off steps that will take
much
longer.

“Not here.” Oz nods at an electric light fixture I hadn’t noticed. But, sure enough, it’s on. “The building was hardened with its own supply, for that reason.” He pushes the call button, and the door pings open. I follow him inside.

The doors close, and we are quiet as we begin to speed upward.

“I killed my grandfather,” I say.

Oz makes sure I meet his eyes. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Do they tell you that?” I ask, jealous that maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if I’d grown up training for nights like this. “Do they prepare you for what it feels like after you have to…?”

Oz says, “Yes, but I haven’t had to put it in practice yet. I don’t think what they tell us would make it much different at all. It should be hard to make a decision like that. But you did the right thing.”

“I feel sick when I think about it. It was over so fast.”

“It was the right thing to do,” he repeats.

“I know.” And I do. Oz’s lack of judgment reinforces it.

I want to believe that Bronson has gotten what he wanted, that he and his Gabrielle are together, that she met him at the threshold of death and told him the drowning was an accident, and that they can make a happy death together. It’s not much of a fairy tale ending, but I want it for him, despite what he did.

The elevator lumbers to a stop and we exit onto the observation deck. It has a dark floor, and stone walls covered by glass. Two rectangular windows with thick glass are positioned in the center of the wall in front of us.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

Oz says, “It’ll be here somewhere.” He examines the walls. On his second circuit, he stops in front of a stone with a crack at the side, or maybe just a thicker join. There’s a small hollow circle above it. “Stand back.” He bashes the glass in front of it once with his elbow, then again, and it breaks. The larger fragments drop at our feet, and he brushes the shards clinging to the frame aside.

“Where are you…?” he says, reaching into the hollow spot with two fingers. I watch as he presses down with his weight, and worry he’ll break a bone in his hand. But stone scrapes stone, and he removes a large rectangular piece from the wall.

“We have to strike inside this area with a weapon, so that the wall repels the attack. That’s all – in theory.” He removes a short blade hidden inside his boot.

I recognize the knife. It’s the one that Bronson used to threaten my father, his backup weapon. Oz offers the grip to me, and I accept it. How fitting.

Through the broad window nearby, more flames are visible. There is a
boom
like the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard.

Oz says, “Do the honors.”

I lift the knife and insert my arm into the hollow stone opening. I scratch the knife along the stone as I withdraw it. My skin buzzes at the contact of knife and stone. But…

Nothing. More. Happens.

The sensation fades as soon as I remove the blade from the empty space.

I frown. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Try striking harder,” he says. “It needs to mimic an attack. But be care–”

There’s no more room for over-cautiousness here. I gather my strength and punch forward with the knife. The opening swallows my hand, and the blade hits the back of the stone within with a crunch. My knuckles vibrate with the impact, my skin stinging and scraped by the rough surface.

But it works.

A deep bass echo and invisible…
force
… pitch me back against the glass protecting the opposite wall. From the hollow comes a deep reverberation, sound made tangible as a shock wave, followed by bright light. At the observation window, Anzu snaps and snarls, angry instead of an ally now. But then he tumbles back and away.

I still have the knife in my hand as we move to the window to watch the walls rise.

They are nearly transparent, but not quite, emanating out from the Monument into the sky in an arc that must end at the edges of the city. The gods are being pushed out en masse, flung beyond the borders like the walls stand between this world and another one. The sound finally dies, but the forcefield – because that’s what the walls are – holds.

The streetlights below come on all at once, showing the destruction left behind. The eerie calm lasts for a single long moment. The first emergency sirens fill it, blaring from speakers mounted around the city.

“We did it,” Oz says.

“We did.” I study the boundary, and wish I could know for certain whether it will be enough to save us. “We postponed the end of the world.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

We ride back up the Mall, the streetlights showing every battered body and smashed national landmark, every response worker trying to help those who hang onto life. Oz rides to the stables, and goes in with Book to make sure he is settled. The stablemen are already spinning stories about the night, and one of them says, “Never thought they’d raise the walls in my lifetime.”

I listen, and wait for Oz to come back out.

A large group of people is gathered around the Jefferson, waiting for something – an explanation, probably. They pay no attention to us. As we approach the less-used ground floor entrance of the Jefferson together, I discover I’m nervous about seeing Mom… and Dad. About seeing what the future will hold now that we have one. Legba made it sound as if this game isn’t ending anytime soon.

Oz stops at the door, puts his back to it and faces me. We stand close, chest to chest. “What is it?” I ask.

But his serious expression tells me. It takes me back to that moment in the yard, when something was going to happen between us until Bree interrupted. The connection between us never left, not during any of this.

I’m still afraid of it. “Oz,” I say, before I can convince myself not to, “it’s better if we stay friends. I’m not… I can’t… Ask Tam. It won’t end well.”

He continues to look at me. Though the shadows around us hide the blue-gray of his eyes, I know them so well by now that I can imagine it.

“Kyra?” he asks.

Before I can give more excuses, he leans in and kisses me. I’m confused at first. Has this night really happened? Is
this
really happening?

Oz’s hand slides to the back of my neck, and his fingers pull my ponytail loose and tangle in my hair. I wrap my arms around him, press close to him, because I want more of this. This feels… new, like I expected a first kiss to feel before I had one.

Someone knocking on the other side of the door makes us separate. His palm drifts down my cheek. I’m not sure how to act after that, and I try for casual. “Kissing at the end of the world,” I say, tone light.

“No better time,” Oz says. “But before you give me a speech about why that can’t happen again, you should know that it will. Kyra, don’t freak out. I’m not asking for your hand in marriage.”

“Gah,” I say. “I can’t believe you even said that.”

“I know you think you’re not relationship material,” he says. My shock must be plain, because he says, “Bree told me.”

“I’m not.” But I’m less sure of it than I ever have been.

“No matter what happens, we have gone through all of this together,” Oz says. “And we
will
be friends, because of that. So, why not see where the rest goes?”

Because that way lies pain. Because that ways lies danger
.

He’s right. I know he’s right. My internal protests are weakness. There will always be pain and danger and risk. But on the other side of those things might be something worth braving them for.

“You make a compelling argument,” I say.

That earns me a devilishly attractive grin.

The person on the other side of the door bangs on it with greater force, and Oz finally steps aside. It swings open. “Sorry,” Oz says, “we had some unfinished business.”

Two Society guards give us the eyeball, annoyed. But then they recognize us. “You two,” one of them says. The other adds, “You’re wanted upstairs by the acting director.” “Acting
directors
,” the first corrects him.

Oz and I exchange a look. We shrug in tandem. “Then that’s where we’re headed,” he says.

Upstairs, we find Society operatives everywhere, going in and out, up and down stairs, with loud chatter. In the Great Hall, my grandfather’s body has been removed and Dad is no longer tied down to the sun. The toppled statue still lays on its side, the marble below it cracked.

Rose clicks across the floor, her uniform exchanged for a sedate dove gray suit. Her black bob is neat and her makeup perfect. Right behind her is my father, also cleaned up and in a fresh uniform. I stop.

“You OK?” Oz asks.

“We saved him,” I say, and he must get how overwhelmed I am at realizing that, at seeing Dad in front of me alive and well, because he only nods.

Rose spots us before Dad does, and signals him so they meet us. I expect Dad to, I don’t know, thank me or fold me into a hug or tear up, but he greets me with, “Good to see you made it back unharmed.”

“Where’s Mom?” I ask.

“Nearby. I’ll take you to her as soon as we’re done here,” he says.

I didn’t realize we were
doing
something here, but fine. I can wait.

“Are you aware, Osborne,” Rose asks, “that the board is the only entity that can decide to raise the city walls?”

Oz turns to Dad. “Mr Locke said–”

“I know, and it was quick thinking on your part. Good job,” Rose tells him.

“That wasn’t nice,” I say.

The freckles on Rose’s cheeks lift as she smiles at me. “You did OK too, especially for someone with no training. Don’t you agree, Henry?”

“She made me proud.”

“Please, stop,” I say, and mean it. I think I may be blushing. Oz’s grin is back and it makes me want to punch his arm. Or pull him into a dark corner.

The levity doesn’t last. Rose sighs, says, “After all, you couldn’t have known we needed Bronson alive.”

“We didn’t,” Dad says. “We’re better off without him. I’m sorry, Oz, but there are better guardians for you.”

“He broke his vows,” Oz says. “And worse.”

It can’t be that simple for Oz. But I know he’ll get through this new loss and deal with the strange circumstances of it, whether it brings more nightmares or not.

Rose lifts one shoulder. “It’s a little inconvenient. We haven’t found a single note he left about how to put the gods back to sleep, no matter what he claimed, and I don’t expect that we will. We lost the only person who had the knowledge to truly protect us from the gods. Now we have to come up with a plan B, figure out how to move this door.”