Abruptly, Veck went back to staring at his monitor. On it was the face of a pretty blond nineteen-year-old who had disappeared about two weeks prior. No body yet, but José was willing to bet she was dead by now.
After nodding, Veck picked up the coffee and sat back into his chair. “Deal.”
José exhaled and put the paper clip where it belonged, in the little clear box with the magnetic rim. “Good. Because we’ve got to find this guy before he takes anyone else.”
THIRTY-NINE
Traveling south on “the Northway,” as Manuel called it, Payne’s eyes were starved for the world around her. Everything was a source of fascination, from the streaming lines of traffic on either side of the road, to the vast black heavens above, to the bracing night chill that rushed into the car’s cockpit every time she opened her window.
Which was about every five minutes. She just loved the change in temperature—warm to cool, warm to cool. . . . It was so totally unlike the Sanctuary, where everything was monoclimatic. Plus there was the great blast of air that blew into her face and tangled her hair and made her laugh.
And then, of course, every time she did it, she looked over at Manuel and found that he was smiling.
“You haven’t asked where we’re going,” he said, after her most recent shutting.
In truth, it did not matter. She was with him and they were free and alone and that was more than enough—
You scrub him. At the end of the night, you scrub him and come back here. Alone.
Payne kept her wince to herself: Wrath, son of Wrath, had the kind of voice that went with the likes of thrones and crowns and black daggers hung about the chest. And the royal tone ’twas not window dressing. He expected to be obeyed, and Payne was under no misapprehension that just because she was the Scribe Virgin’s daughter, somehow she was not subject to his rule. As long as she was down here, this was his world and she was in it.
Whilst the king had uttered those awful words, she had squeezed her eye
s shut, and upon the silence that had reigned thereafter, promptly realized that she and Manuel would be going nowhere unless she avowed.
And so . . . she had.
“Would you like to know? Hello? Payne?”
With a start, she forced a smile to her face. “I would prefer to be surprised.”
Now he grinned deeply. “Even more fun—well, as I said, I want to introduce you to someone.” His smile faded a little. “I think you might like her.”
Her? As in a female?
Like?
Verily, that would happen only if the “she” in question had a horse face and a big butt, Payne thought.
“How lovely,” she said.
“Here’s our exit.” There was a soft click-click-click and then Manuel turned the wheel and drew them off the larger road onto a declining ramp.
As they stopped in a line of other vehicles, she saw off on the far, far horizon a huge city, the likes of which her eyes struggled to comprehend: Great buildings marked with an incalculable number of pinhole lights rose up from a ground cover of smaller structures, and it was not a static place. Red and white lights snaked in and around its edges . . . no doubt hundreds of cars on roads similar to the one they had just traveled upon.
“You’re looking at New York City,” Manny said.
“It’s . . . beautiful.”
He laughed a little. “Parts of it certainly are. And darkness and distance are great makeup artists.”
Payne reached out and touched the clear glass window in front of her. “Where I tarried in the above, there were no long vistas. No grandeur. Nothing but the oppressive milky sky and the choking boundary of forest. This is all so wondrous—”
A harsh sound rang out behind them, and then another.
Manny glared into the small mirror o’erhead. “Relax, buddy. I’m going . . .”
As he accelerated, quickly closing the distance to the next car ahead, she felt badly that she had distracted him.