“Fuck you,” Sloane said. Over the woman’s shoulder, she spotted the milky-eyed man who had carried her into the building over his shoulder. He was sitting with a few others, a siphon in pieces in his lap. He made a kissing face at her.
“I didn’t mean in general,” Mox told Sloane, sounding a little like the normal young man she had met in the cultural center even through the metallic warp of his siphon. “Sloane, this is Ziva, my lieutenant. Ziva, Sloane.”
“We’ve met,” Sloane said. “She chloroformed me.”
“We thought you were some great magic-user,” Ziva said, her upper lip curling in what might have been a sneer if her lips hadn’t been taut and cracked, like dry earth. “If I’d known you were completely helpless, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
“Helpless?” Sloane laughed. “So how do you explain me escaping from right under your nose?”
“This building is about to be stormed by the Army of Flickering, but by all means, continue arguing like children,” Mox snapped.
Ziva stood up straighter, then stepped away from Sloane and Mox. She stuck a whistle—attached to one of her fingers—between her lips and blew on it. Sloane brought a hand to her chest to steady herself when all the soldiers in the hallway got to their feet. It took some of them longer than others—Sloane watched a smaller woman slump against the wall and then shove herself up with both legs as a lever. When the woman turned, Sloane saw that she was holding an arm, one that had clearly once gone in her shoulder socket.
Ziva whistled again, bringing her hand up to her throat, where she wore a scratched siphon. Her voice came out twice as loud, though still raspy. “Emergency evac! To the safe house, and keep your eyes open. We’re being pursued.” Ziva looked over her shoulder at Sloane, and there was something odd in her expression. Something like hope and despair mixed together.
“Still can’t use a siphon?” Mox said to Sloane. All around them, the soldiers of the Resurrectionist had picked up bags and were stuffing things—including, Sloane noticed, the woman’s detached arm—into them.
“No,” Sloane admitted.
“Then you’re stuck with me at the front,” he said. “Better keep up.”
The army was forming a loose pack behind them. Someone pried the boards away from one of the doors, letting in a gust of fresh air. The blue geometric fixtures above Sloane’s head swung back and forth in the wind. Mox loped toward the doors, his gait uneven but powerful, his cloak whipping around his shoulders. She felt the soldiers behind her creeping closer and ran to catch up with him.
She had left her own cloak behind, so the cold air cut right through her shirt, sending a shiver through her. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands.
Behind her, the Resurrectionist’s army spilled into the street like a glass of water tipped over. They divided into smaller groups, silent except for the creaking of their bones and the shuffling of their feet. They disappeared down alleys and slipped between buildings, peeling away with every side street they passed, until it was just Mox, Sloane, and a trio of decrepit undead.
The streets were emptier here, south of downtown, and the buildings were farther apart. They passed a corner store lit up by pale fluorescents displaying a dozen brands of cigarettes—Rhabdos, Fairy Godmothers, and Fumus among them—and liters of soda in green, orange, and glittery blue. Behind the counter, a sallow-faced man gaped at them as they passed. Even shrouded in hoods and cloaks, as all the others were, they still made a strange sight: four hooded figures with siphon hands outstretched and one random woman making their way down the sidewalk.
A few cars passed, swerving away from them as if they were potholes, but their path was unobstructed until they reached Roosevelt Road. To the left was the train yard, the ground rippling with rails. And parked at the corner on the right was a police car. Though the vehicle’s lights were off, Sloane saw two silhouettes in the front seats.
Mox stuck out a hand, and they all came to a halt. He let out a tweet, like a sparrow. Behind him, the undead soldiers stretched out their own siphon arms and bit down on whistles. In unison, all four magic-users made the same sound at the same pitch, high and light, a chorus of birdsong.
The police car lifted off the pavement and turned upside down. Sloane saw the