“How are you, honey? How is your new family? Are you still having your strange dreams?”
An odd expression passed across Ani’s face—a look of reticence. “Uncle Id ... he says we’re not supposed to talk about that.”
Avery’s mouth opened but he didn’t know what to say. A new wave of dizziness started to come over him. She was holding things back from him?
“But ... Ani ...”
She looked away.
He frowned at her royal kin, who were watching their exchange tensely, and again he caught whiffs of both fear and awe in their faces when they regarded Ani.
“Ani, just what’s going on? I don’t understand.”
Still she said nothing.
“How’s Hildebrand, you little squirt?” Hildra said, coming over and giving the girl a big hug. “Why isn’t he here?”
“Uncle Id thought the commotion’d be too much for him,” Ani said, brightening; Hildra always put her in a good mood.
“But he’s okay?”
Ani grinned from ear to ear. “He’s fuckin’ great!”
Hildra laughed, and Ani did, too. Avery started to say something, but then Layanna was beside him looking worried, and he didn’t have to guess at her thoughts.
“You think he was telling the truth—Rigurd, I mean?” he asked. “About the Starfish?”
“Yes. And there’s something else. The ray has not moved away, and its psychic is still trying to hammer the area with a blast. It’s all I can do to keep him at bay, and I cannot do it for much longer.”
“Sheridan,” Avery said, speaking the name like a curse. “She knows all she has to do is hold out until after the Starfish destroys the city, then she can come in and rule the ashes, or hand them over to her superiors.” Then he frowned. “Layanna, I saw something in Rigurd’s lair, something ...” He let out a breath. “It’s the Atoshan relic. I think—”
Soldiers shouted to each other, and
guns swung toward the east. In the pit of his stomach, Avery felt a certain
dread, and it was no surprise to him when General Hastur, after conferring with
her soldiers, reported to Denaris and Idris together. Her face was very grave
as she said, “Sirs, the Starfish is attacking.”
Chapter 10
“Holy fucking shit,” said Hildra, staring east as if she could see the creature itself through the buildings that separated her from the water. “It’s really happening. And here we are with fuck-all we can do about it.”
“Mebbe we shouldn’t have killed Rigurd,” Janx said.
“It was the only way,” said Layanna.
“Yeah, well, now what?” Hildra snapped.
Avery released Ani and gestured for her to return to her family—her other family. He would always be her first family. An awful silence hung over the Square, the hundreds of thousands of people packed into it staring westward as the news rippled among them. There were muted curses and a few screams, but the silence soaked them up and began to thicken, grow oppressive. In the distance, Avery thought he heard a great grinding noise, and through the soles of his feet he felt a tremor. Janx is right, he thought. We should have let Rigurd live.
“We have the nectar,” he said. Looking to Layanna, he said, “It’s still in you, right?”
She nodded. “If I can bring over my other-self and ingest the nectar from the organelle it’s stored in, I can plug myself into the Starfish’s brain and send out the signal through it to the rest of them. I can still kill them all. But I can’t penetrate the creature’s exterior, not with all its lightning, which is composed of a very different energy than that of the sea. We needed the drill.”
His gaze settled on the dirigible he’d flown here on. He had just been formulating a plan to deal with the ray, and that plan suddenly presented a further option.
Quietly, he said, “There is a way.”
The others looked at him. In the distance, the grinding noises solidified. Grew louder. There came the crash and roar as a building toppled. The sound went on and on. The crowd in the Square began to shift. Soon they might stampede. Panic. Thousands could die from fright alone, Avery knew. He must hurry.
“What do you have in mind?” Layanna said.
He told them.
Janx swore, and Hildra turned pale. Layanna just stared at him as if he were mad. Denaris, Idris and the others in hearing were looking at him in horror.
“Can you do it?” Avery asked Layanna.
“I—I think so,” she said. “I’m not promising anything, but I think—yes.”
“That’s good enough.” He turned to Janx and Hildra. “You with me?”
Soberly, they nodded.
“Can I help?” General Hastur said.
“Yes,” Avery said, and told her how. Immediately she began barking into a radio. Soldiers began to move, and one group was assigned to Avery’s party. Leading the way to the dirigible, Avery passed Ani again, and she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his leg.
