a promise, and I’m going to keep it. He’s going down.”
“And we’ll make sure your story gets told.” Nell turned to Tyler. She spread her open hands. “This is what we do. This is who we are. When a reporter backs down from uncovering the truth, just because it might be dangerous…that’s when the bad guys win. I’m chasing this story to the end of the line, no matter what happens.”
“Even if you die trying,” Tyler said.
Nell nodded, resolute.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
36.
They emerged from a Bronx subway station into a murky sunset. The overcast sky looked like spilled oil paint, rippling and muddy umber, and the distant rumble of thunder was a train on rusted tracks. As they moved deeper into foreign territory, crimson scrawls marked the lay of the land. Spray-paint twists on crumbling brick ended in crowns and crosses.
The Jasmine Day Spa sagged in dejected ruin up ahead. No cars were parked along the barren street. A vagrant shuffled in the shadow of the spa’s shattered plastic sign, shoving a drug-store shopping cart over jagged cracks in the pavement.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” Tyler said.
Seelie’s hand made a sideways swipe, slicing the air. She had left her backpack at the apartment. She hated going anywhere without it, but tonight called for traveling fast and light.
“Hold up.”
Her instincts were in overdrive. Time spent without a permanent address had given her an ear for the voice of the street. Get in enough sketchy situations, you either learned how to survive or learned to be a victim. Seelie survived. She watched the vagrant, her eyes narrowed and hard.
“Sometimes dealers kick these guys a few bucks to act as lookouts,” she murmured. “Jai Sahni might know that trick too. I want to see if he’s patrolling or just moving along.”
He hobbled to the end of the block, turned a corner, and disappeared. Just moving along.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“We have a plan?” Tyler asked.
Nell led the way, down an alley and skirting the side of the building.
“Get in, take pictures, document evidence,” she said. “Once we see what we’ve got to work with, we can decide what comes next. We’ll have to think on our feet and adapt. If Leda figures out what we’re doing, she’ll move fast. We’ve got to be faster.”
She prowled under the drooping arches, gazing up at boarded-over windows and running her fingers along a stone mantel. Around back, the alley hit a dead-end wall. Stray trash, fast-food wrappers, and bits of urban flotsam littered the muddy ground. Tyler tried the handle on a back door; it rattled in his grip, holding tight.
“All locked up,” he said. “And the front doors are shuttered.”
Nell tugged at a sheet of graffiti-drowned wood. It wriggled at one corner. She brandished her Smith and Wesson tactical pen. The hot-pink cylinder, made of aircraft-grade aluminum, slid between the board and the window beneath. It became a lever, rocking back and forth as she pressed against it, slowly forcing a nail loose and working the plywood back.
“Here,” she said, “think I pried it wide enough that we can slip our fingers underneath. Give me a hand.”
One by one, the nails groaned and popped free. Nell and Tyler lifted the board together, gently easing it to the alley floor. Tyler cupped his hand over his brow and squinted through the dirty glass.
“Can’t see a damn thing in there.”
“Stand back,” Nell said.
She held her pen tight, turned her face away, and drove the conical spike tip against the glass. Spiderweb cracks lanced out from the impact crater. One more hit sent shards of glass raining down, making jagged piano-chord sounds as they shattered and spun at their feet. Nell ran the pen along the sill, knocking away razored chips, clearing safe passage.
“Mightier than the sword,” she said, “and more versatile.”
Tyler was the first one in. He curled his fingers around the rotting wood, careful, and lifted himself up and over. Seelie kept watch behind him, eyes on the alleyway, while he touched down inside.
“We’re clear,” he whispered. “Come on through.”
Nell was next, then Seelie. She wriggled through the gap, setting her ratty sneakers down on a stretch of yellowed linoleum. The only light came from the window at their backs, casting a fading beam along a corridor littered with debris. Fallen ceiling tiles left skeletal steel above their heads and a broken chessboard underfoot, gray and ivory squares caked in dust. Nell flicked on her phone, adding the hard white glow of her screen to the