They followed the walkway along the river, their breath pluming out in the cold air. Kenzie was in a festive mood, singing rock and roll at the top of his lungs.
“Hey now, keep it down!” Jonah warned. “You sound like you’ve had a few too many. You don’t want to draw the local constabulary.”
Unfazed, Kenzie said, “I wrote a love song . . . Wanna hear?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kenzie adopted a hangdog expression and began to sing, in a twanging country voice.
I ain’t pretty, that is true, I know you take me for a fool, A love story in a comic book cover, Ain’t never going to be your lover.
Ain’t hard to resist, Ain’t never been kissed.
If I build you castles out of words, And gardens out of nouns and verbs, Would poetry your heart ensnare? Would you let me see your derriere?
Think of how fun it would be to have done it.
Some people say I aim too high, You’ll never let me touch your thigh, If your thigh’s too high, how about your ankle?
If you wear leather, I’ll wear manacles.
Strap me down and I’ll be fine.
Fulfill my adolescent dream,
Let’s take friendship to extremes.
I promise you plenty of courting and sparking, If you’ll consent to take me parking.
I mean, literally . . . sparking. You’ll have to drive.
Kenzie tilted his head down. “What works best— ‘derriere’ or ‘underwear’?”
Jonah snorted with laughter. “Um. I don’t know how to choose between them.”
“What do you think, otherwise?”
“It may not have broad market appeal.”
“I’m targeting the audience for Helen Keller jokes,” Kenzie said. “Now listen. I’ve got several possible endings. Tell me which one you like best.
I’m so outta luck Ain’t never been—
“Maybe not,” Jonah said. “They won’t play it on the radio.” Undeterred, Kenzie sang:
It’s real disturbin’
That I’m still a virgin.
“You just keep thinking, Kenzie,” Jonah said, shaking his head as they passed beneath the Detroit-Superior Bridge. Jonah gazed up at its elaborate undercarriage, then stiffened, catching the scent of free magic.
Was this another ambush? Jonah suddenly realized how vulnerable they were, all alone on the riverbank. “Hey,” he murmured, resting a hand on Kenzie’s shoulder. “Would you mind parking under the bridge a few minutes while I check something out?”
“You’re not saving the world again, are you?” Kenzie asked, his eyes glittering in the lights from the parking lot. He swung the chair around, taking shelter next to one of the bridge pillars.
When he was a member of Nightshade, Jonah’s course of action would’ve been clear: search and destroy. Now what? Should he call Alison? Gabriel? Or simply walk away?
Peering out from under the bridge, he saw movement on the slope down to Lockwood, dozens of free shades funneling between the buildings. And beyond, a line of savants, bristling with shivs, driving the shades toward the river.
Gabriel must’ve issued an “all-hands” for this riff. To anyone watching, it would have looked like a battle in which only one side showed up.
As the shades crossed into the park, another group of shadehunters rose up from hiding places along the riverbank, trapping the shades between the two groups of slayers. Both sides waded in, brandishing shivs. Shades screamed as shivs connected—a heartrending, desolate sound that only Jonah could hear.
Escaping free shades swarmed up from the killing ground, fleeing straight toward the bridge. Thunk! Weapons sounded overhead—an unfamiliar thwacking sound. When the missiles hit home, the shades screamed and dissolved into a shower of glittering phosphorescence that dissipated in the wind from the lake. Each time it was like a bolt fired into Jonah’s soul.
Jonah crouched, and leaped high, catching hold of the archway atop the pillars with the tips of his fingers. He flipped up onto the pillar, then onto the subway railing. He pulled himself up and onto the bridge.
Alison, Charlie, and Mike were lined up along the rail, firing down at the fleeing shades with weapons that seemed to be a marriage between an air rifle and a crossbow, each reloading smoothly from a quiver of hiltless shivs. There seemed to be no shortage of shivs for this operation. And still, from below, the screaming.
This must be the new plan—Gabriel’s more efficient alternative to Jonah.
“Stop it!” Jonah shouted, shoving Mike’s weapon aside. “Can’t you hear them screaming?”
The shadehunter pivoted, aiming his gun at Jonah. Then slowly lowered his weapon. “No,” he said. “I can’t.”
“With you out of Nightshade, this is the only option we have.” Alison cocked her weapon and reloaded, fired and reloaded, never taking her eyes off the target. “Speaking of . . . what the hell are you doing here?”
Alison seemed to have gotten over her dismay at Jonah’s departure from Nightshade.
“If you’ll recall, I live up the hill,” Jonah said. He paused, then added, “What’s going on?”
“We’re doing a sweep,” Charlie said, turning back to his task. “Clearing the warehouse district and the Flats of free shades to improve security.”
“There’s got to be a better way,” Jonah said, shuddering.
“Actually, we think it’s working pretty well,” Mike said, sliding another shiv into place.
“We were hoping that Lilith would show,” Alison said. “Would you recognize her if you saw her?”
“Why?” Jonah asked warily.
“Gabriel wants her dead.” She mopped at her forehead with her sleeve. “He’s offering a bonus to the slayer who takes her down.”
“I think that’s a mistake,” Jonah said. “I think he should talk to her, and find out who she is and what she knows. Then we can decide what to do.”
“And Gabriel thinks that she’s charmed you somehow. Which is why you’re out of Nightshade.”
“They’re killing mainliners in droves and blaming it on us, Jonah,” Mike said. “You think we should let them keep at it?”
“I never said that,” Jonah said, flinching as another shiv hit home.
“We can’t fight them when they’re organized like this.” Charlie reloaded again. “That’s why Summer’s dead. Even free shades are getting stronger. If we get rid of Lilith, we can go back to our usual game. Less risk for us, less risk for the general public.”
“Jonah,” Alison said, holding her fire for the moment. “You can still help us. You could arrange a meeting. Tell her we want to talk terms. And when you’ve set it up, let us know when and where. We’ll be waiting, and this thing will be over.”
“No,” Jonah said. “I’m out of Nightshade, remember?” He went to turn away, and Alison fired a bolt over his shoulder. Dumbfounded, he turned back to face her.
“Hey,” Charlie said. “Cut it out. Jonah’s not the enemy.”
“He’s either with us or against us,” Alison said, firing off another. She meant to miss: Alison was a better shot than that, but just then Jonah didn’t care. He didn’t remember covering the distance between them. But he plowed into her and she went down on her back and the crossbow went flying, slamming into the guardrail. He rolled away, scooped up the weapon, and broke it in half.
Alison scrambled to her feet and charged at him, and he sidestepped easily. She turned and came at him again, and he evaded her again.
“We can keep doing this for as long as you want,” Jonah said. “But I’m guessing the police won’t ignore what’s happening here forever.”
Alison struggled to catch her breath. “When Gabriel finds out you interfered with a Nightshade operation—”
“Once you’ve regained your senses, I think you’ll agree that it’s best if Gabriel doesn’t hear anything about this little exchange at all,” Jonah said. “I may not be in operations anymore, but I’m not going to let you shoot at me.”
By now, there was little to no activity on the ground. The shades were either dead or fled into hiding, and the hunters on the ground dispersed quickly, leaving no evidence that they’d ever been there.
A strangled cry from below distracted Jonah. He looked down and saw that Kenzie’s chair had emerged from under the bridge. He was trying to escape a swarm of free shades that were leaning in, poking at him, covering his face with their hands. Harassing him.
Kenzie had no Nightshade amulet. He shouldn’t have been able to see them clearly, yet, obviously, he was aware of them, batting at them with his hands. As Jonah watched, his brother’s wheelchair veered off the walkway into the grass, heading for the river.
“Kenzie!” Jonah vaulted over the side of the walkway, landing hard on the pavement below. He sprinted after his brother, intercepted the wheelchair at the water’s edge, and knocked Kenzie’s hand off the throttle. The chair slowed to a stop and Jonah set the brake.
He turned to face the shades, and they faded back, out of reach, then turned and fled.
Kenzie was trembling, glassy-eyed, seizing. He still gripped the MP3 player in one hand. Jonah managed to pry it free. The music had stopped.
Jonah glanced back at the bridge. Alison, Charlie, and Mike were gone.
Swearing softly, he turned Kenzie so he faced the river, knowing that once the seizure started, he’d just have to ride it out. With Kenzie, you never knew just what that would involve.
Blue flame webbed and flickered over Kenzie’s skin, and Jonah hoped he wouldn’t short out the chair. The flame coalesced into balls of fire that arced out over the river, hissing like Roman candles as they dropped into the water. Fortunately, none seemed in danger of hitting the wooden buildings on the other side. Kenzie’s arms and legs jittered and danced, his ashen face painted by his personal light show.