Mox and Ziva followed her out of the car, going past the minty-green nurse and Sneakers, who was trying a working, snapping his fingers and whistling. Whatever the working was, it didn’t seem to be going well.
They climbed the steps to street level and fell into the rhythm of pedestrian traffic—the flipping of the Walk signal, the brushing of shoulders and elbows. Ziva kept her head down, pinching the back of Mox’s sleeve so she wouldn’t lose track of him. Sloane kept him in her peripheral vision, her hair hanging loose around her cheeks.
She paused, briefly, next to St. Peter’s Church, a low stone building wedged between two glass giants. A massive crucifix was carved into its face, with Gothic windows behind it and wooden doors below. The familiarity of it steadied her. Of course, on Earth, she had never seen a man in front of it juggling balls of floating water, siphons on both wrists—but she would take what she could get.
It was another block to the Daley Center, the brown building she had recognized on her first venture into the city, Kyros at her side. On Earth, the entrance to the pedway was in the courtyard in front of it, so if it was going to be anywhere on Genetrix, it was there. She recognized the decorative grate, painted pale blue, from a distance. It marked the steps that descended underground. It was also where they would leave Mox, a block away from the Camel.
She stopped by the grate, a strange pressure against her chest as she looked up at him.
He reached up and undid the clasps holding his siphon to his face. He brushed a hand over his upper lip to get rid of the sweat that had collected there. Then he bent toward her to kiss her.
Even with stale breath and damp skin from the siphon’s restriction, with the bustle of bodies around her and the nervousness that had destabilized her, she found herself tilting toward him on tiptoes and burying her bare hand in his hair.
“Don’t fuck around,” she said quietly as she pulled away. “We all get out of this alive.”
He smiled at her and fastened the siphon over his face again. She turned to Ziva and jerked her head in the direction of the pedway entrance. Ziva pinched her sleeve right over her elbow and held on as Sloane led them down the steps.
40
THE PEDWAY SMELLED just like one of the underground el platforms: musty, like an old garage, with a hint of stale urine. The path they followed was lined with dark gray tile, cracking in some places and broken in others. But here and there, there were stained-glass windows set into the tile with a light behind them, as if they were outside. Some were leaded-glass geometry; others were swirls of color broken up into fragments or cyclones of interlocking circles in monochrome or checkerboards of lead and gold leaf.
The pedway was confusing, and only Sloane’s innate sense of direction kept her from getting lost. She had convinced Ziva, via a hard stare, to link arms as they walked; Ziva’s rotting hand was buried in her sleeve. Her arm felt fragile, like a dry branch. Sloane forced herself not to hurry as they passed the stairway that led up to City Hall. All they had to do was walk under Randolph Street and they would be beneath the Camel.
She hadn’t been sure how they would know when they were in the right place, given the lack of clear signage, but that turned out not to be a problem. Up ahead, between two grand columns over which the words CORDUS CENTER FOR ADVANCED MAGICAL INNOVATION AND LEARNING were painted in rich purple, was a shimmering veil. Sloane glanced at Ziva.
“Well,” Ziva said. “Here goes.”
Sloane stepped through the veil, and a strong wind blew her hair back and pressed her clothes to her body. The siphon on her hand lit up like a lantern, and white light danced over the back of her right hand, where the Needle had once been. Across from her stood a soldier with the seal of Flickering on his chest.
Ziva’s hood had blown back, revealing her grayish skin and bulging eyes. As soon as the wind stopped, Ziva hurried to cover her head again, exposing her peeling fingers and claw-sharp fingernails when her sleeves fell away from them. The soldier glanced in their direction, looked away, then looked back. Sloane steered Ziva away as quickly as she could