Ellen's Arc

Chapter 25 of 45

Morning came gray through the shattered lobby window. Ellen counted her people on the second floor. Six women, all awake, all thin. They had run for days before the hotel. Now the running was done, but the food was gone. Two water jugs sat by the wall, both light. She lifted one and heard it slosh once. A day, maybe. Then nothing. Walls could stop bullets. Walls could not feed anyone. She knew the cellar cache once held water and rations. She took Cade and went down. The shelves were bare. Someone had cleaned them out weeks ago. Cade ran a hand along the empty wood. "Nothing here," he said. He counted the doors out of habit and turned for the stairs. A sound stopped them. Not wind. A low roar, wet and heavy, from the dark end of the cellar. The reopened drain tunnel. Something big moved in it. Then heat rolled up the passage, and a snout pushed into the light. Scales dark as dried blood. Eyes that fixed on Ellen and held. A gout of fire lit the wall behind her. The beast hunted by heat. Six warm women slept above. Cade fired twice. The rounds sparked off the scales and did nothing. "Back up the stairs," he said. "Now." They ran. The beast filled the tunnel mouth, too wide to follow fast, and that bought them the stairwell. A man stood in the lobby. Small, bald, gold robe, rings on every finger. He had come through the front door while they were below. He watched the cellar stairs without fear. Ellen had wronged this man once. She had spotted the flaw in his plan against Stark, and Cade had pried it open, and Stark had walked away alive. The Mandarin had not forgotten. "You cost me a victory," the Mandarin said. "The three of you." He raised one hand. A ring glowed pale. "I sent the beast ahead. It smells your people upstairs." The front bar splintered inward. Stark walked through the ruined door, armor scarred. Behind him came a broad man with a hammer, yellow beard, cape torn. Thorn Odinson. He pointed the hammer at Cade. "You and Tony answer for what you did," Thorn said. "But not to that thing." He swung past them into the cellar mouth. Stark's palm lit. "Get your women to the road," he told Ellen. "Wagon's outside. Loaded. Water, food, enough for a month." He fired down the stairs. "Take it. This is done here." Ellen did not ask why. She ran the six women down and out. The wagon sat on the road, crates lashed under canvas. Water. Grain. Salt meat. Enough to hold the hotel a month or more. She threw the canvas back and saw it was true. Her people would eat. But three armed enemies now stood inside her home, and only one of them was on her side.