inside him that his belly distended and shifted as if from some alien pregnancy. The seers in the market who could read your past and future in your palm, in tea leaves, in the squiggly purple guts of rats. But never anything like the other night.
People have always spoken of Lewis as if he were and were not human. He has always struck her as a kind of weak phantom, a shade of a man, but it was not until he hurled her back against the pillar, not until she suffered against what felt like a giant, fiery pair of hands, that she understood what he was capable of and why they needed him on their side more than ever.
She knows—everyone knows—of his difficult history with the mayor. She knows about Thomas badgering him for guns and black powder. She came to the museum costumed as a deputy and made certain the owl observed her clearly. She is counting on his mutiny. But if Lewis discovers it was her—and who knows what he can see—then she knows her guilt over smothering an old woman will be the least of her troubles.
She rises to her feet and spits and takes a deep, calming breath. Over the years she has found ways to keep her temper in check. To breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth. To sketch out words on her palm with a fingernail: hate , mad , fuck , die . This helps settle her now—to loosen her coiled sense of confusion and loathing—as she races through the maze of streets.
She needs to hurry. If everything has gone according to plan, if her brother has done as she asked him to do, then they won’t have much time.
* * *
When York first climbs the gallows and swings from its noose, he uses a razor tucked in his palm to thin the rope to a few threads. Then the deputies march across the field, dragging the girl between them, and York descends the steps and momentarily loses his focus. In part it is her eyes, like polished balls of obsidian, but more than that it is her. The oval cut of her face, the regal way she holds her head. In her own way, she is beautiful. He stares at her dumbly until they march her up the thirteen steps of the gallows. Then he shakes off his trance and positions himself below, waiting for the trapdoor to open.
In his head he has rehearsed their escape so many times that it already seems a reality. There are four tunnels in the stadium, each as black as a skull’s sockets. Down one of them waits the mass of caterers and musicians who will take to the field following the execution. Down another tunnel huddle a few deputies, though most of them patrol the bleachers. The other two tunnels are unoccupied, the corridors to the south side of the stadium strewn with sand and half-collapsed. York has scouted them, picked the lock of a side door, stowed weapons and clothes in a nearby alley. The streets will be empty when he and the girl race to meet Clark.
But that’s not what happens.
The deputies fit the noose around her neck, and she looks to the sky as if in prayer. Her black eyes reflect the white-blue expanse swarming with vultures. Her body goes rigid, and York hears something then, though he cannot place the sound so much as he can feel the attendant shiver, the air like struck tin.
Vultures always swoop over the Sanctuary, but they come together now by the hundreds, more and more of them drawn from rooftops and thermals, coalescing into a spinning black funnel with the gallows as its axis. The crowd follows her gaze upward. They murmur and shrink in their seats as if they can sense what’s coming. And then it comes.
The cyclone collapses and all at once the vultures fall on the stadium. They are a terrible rain, but not the one everyone has been praying for. Big balls of air come rolling off their long-fingered wings, making a wind strong enough to raise dust devils all over the field. People squint their eyes and throw up their hands and cry out in voices that match the scratchy timbre of the vultures. Some of the birds land on shoulders and some of them swing
People have always spoken of Lewis as if he were and were not human. He has always struck her as a kind of weak phantom, a shade of a man, but it was not until he hurled her back against the pillar, not until she suffered against what felt like a giant, fiery pair of hands, that she understood what he was capable of and why they needed him on their side more than ever.
She knows—everyone knows—of his difficult history with the mayor. She knows about Thomas badgering him for guns and black powder. She came to the museum costumed as a deputy and made certain the owl observed her clearly. She is counting on his mutiny. But if Lewis discovers it was her—and who knows what he can see—then she knows her guilt over smothering an old woman will be the least of her troubles.
She rises to her feet and spits and takes a deep, calming breath. Over the years she has found ways to keep her temper in check. To breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth. To sketch out words on her palm with a fingernail: hate , mad , fuck , die . This helps settle her now—to loosen her coiled sense of confusion and loathing—as she races through the maze of streets.
She needs to hurry. If everything has gone according to plan, if her brother has done as she asked him to do, then they won’t have much time.
* * *
When York first climbs the gallows and swings from its noose, he uses a razor tucked in his palm to thin the rope to a few threads. Then the deputies march across the field, dragging the girl between them, and York descends the steps and momentarily loses his focus. In part it is her eyes, like polished balls of obsidian, but more than that it is her. The oval cut of her face, the regal way she holds her head. In her own way, she is beautiful. He stares at her dumbly until they march her up the thirteen steps of the gallows. Then he shakes off his trance and positions himself below, waiting for the trapdoor to open.
In his head he has rehearsed their escape so many times that it already seems a reality. There are four tunnels in the stadium, each as black as a skull’s sockets. Down one of them waits the mass of caterers and musicians who will take to the field following the execution. Down another tunnel huddle a few deputies, though most of them patrol the bleachers. The other two tunnels are unoccupied, the corridors to the south side of the stadium strewn with sand and half-collapsed. York has scouted them, picked the lock of a side door, stowed weapons and clothes in a nearby alley. The streets will be empty when he and the girl race to meet Clark.
But that’s not what happens.
The deputies fit the noose around her neck, and she looks to the sky as if in prayer. Her black eyes reflect the white-blue expanse swarming with vultures. Her body goes rigid, and York hears something then, though he cannot place the sound so much as he can feel the attendant shiver, the air like struck tin.
Vultures always swoop over the Sanctuary, but they come together now by the hundreds, more and more of them drawn from rooftops and thermals, coalescing into a spinning black funnel with the gallows as its axis. The crowd follows her gaze upward. They murmur and shrink in their seats as if they can sense what’s coming. And then it comes.
The cyclone collapses and all at once the vultures fall on the stadium. They are a terrible rain, but not the one everyone has been praying for. Big balls of air come rolling off their long-fingered wings, making a wind strong enough to raise dust devils all over the field. People squint their eyes and throw up their hands and cry out in voices that match the scratchy timbre of the vultures. Some of the birds land on shoulders and some of them swing
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