Page 87
Story: City of Smoke and Brimstone
Lace showed her screen to Roman. “Archie’s?” She glanced down at him.
Roman shared a look with Kylar, their eyes solid black as they said in unison, “The fucking arcade.”
27
The Theater District
YVESWICH, STATE OF KER
By the timeShay rolled the truck to a stop in the Theater District, the city had descended deeper into chaos. The sky had darkened. More helicopters flew about. Fleet soldiers moved among them, urging civilians to evacuate.
This cobblestone road they were on made Shay feel like she’d stepped through a time portal. Shops that sold records, comic books, video games, and various collectible items lined either side of it, and right in the heart of it all, next to a rundown cinema that only aired dated films, was an arcade calledArchie’s.
“I gotta admit,” Tanner said, his eyes wide with fascination. He looked like a kid in a candy store. “This is so totally my jam.”
“And Pax and Gene’s, too, if I’m tracking them properly.” But the road was as quiet as it was dark, and when several minutes went by with no sign of them she began to doubt herself. Had she made a mistake?
“Maybe they’re inside?” Tanner guessed.
“How would they have gotten in, though?” she challenged. “Everything’s spell-protected.” A wash of colorful runes shimmered over every building, from foundation to roof. Even the streetlights still worked.
When she had tracked Eugene, she’d used two methods to find him: coordinates and street view. Street view had given her a glimpse of the sign above the door to Archie’s, which had led to their decision to come here, but coordinates were…tricky. Coordinates were far more precise than street view—accurate enough to zero in on a single tree or a person. But she rarely used that method—anddefinitelycould use more practice at it. Alotmore practice. In other words, Archie’s was nothing but an approximate guess. Pax and Gene could be anywhere on the block—or beyond by now.
Shay was about to ask Tanner to pass her the Stygian salt so she could try tracking them again, when suddenly he spoke.
“I just saw something.” He leaned forward in his seat, his eyes jet black.
Then he opened his door.
“Hold up—are we sure we want to go out there?” She didn’t feel great about that decision, not when thesomethingTanner claimed to have seen could simply be a hungry predator.
“There are kids over there.” That was all she needed to hear.
She opened her door, a cold wind that threatened to slam it shut slashing across her face and whipping her hair back. If Paxton and Eugene had been out in this weather for hours, they’d be lucky if they still had all their toes.
They walked together down the deserted road, periodically crouching behind parked cars in case Don or his men were in the area.
The kids Tanner had spotted were in an alley several blocks away from Archie’s. There weren’t two of them, though—there were five.
And three of the five were picking on the smaller two.
“Get off me!” Eugene’s panicky voice bounced down the alley as the biggest kid in the group wrestled him to the ground, aknife to his throat. They hit the cobblestones, knife clattering across the ground.
Another boy was holding onto Paxton—pinning him to the brick wall by his neck and spitting threats in his face. The third also had a knife, and he was using it to scare Paxton into not fighting back.
The sight of children brandishing weapons like that… Shay felt sick.
She was about to fry those little shits with lightning when Tanner yanked on the back of her suit, dragging her down behind a car.
“What are you doing?” she hissed. “We need to help them!”
Tanner merely said, “Look.”
Two big men were heading this way.
“Oh shit,” Shay whispered.
It was Trey and Simon—two of Don’s men. These assholes had beaten the shit out of Roman at the House of Black the night Shay found him strung up in chains. The same assholes who had a tendency to grab onto Paxton by his arms with a too-tight grip.
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