Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

I ignore the bike messenger, ignore the cabbie a few feet away sitting on the top of his cab and tossing breadcrumbs to the empty pavement. I call for my mother. Loud and louder and louder.

Nothing.

But I know she’s there. It compels me. There’s a golden rope around my soul linking me to hers. I can’t see it but I can feel it and it’s tightening on the winch as we go.

So we keep going.

We pass the Apple store which looks the same as it does in real life, only this time it’s teeming with giant wood lice, thick as trash cans and shining a slick grey. They burrow through the walls with their shearing mandibles, slowly destroying it. Outside on the curb, a couple sits, iPads in their hands. iPads that don’t work, given the agony on their faces.

“That’s someone’s person Hell,” I comment.

My voice sounds so foreign and robbed of all essence that it takes me a moment to realize I said it.

Ada! Jay admonishes me.

Shit.

SHIT.

I wasn’t supposed to talk out loud.

The couple with the iPads look up at me.

Dead eyes.

Angry eyes.

They see you, he says to me. We have to try and run.

What about before? The little boy. With the thing inside.

It only saw me, he says. If it had known you were there . . .

He doesn’t have to explain.

The couple is getting to their feet.

More than that, the wood lice have all paused, their antennas flickering in my direction like leathery pipe-cleaners.

Down the wide open street, the bike messenger is turning around and coming back to us.

We start running.

The wall of humidity pushes back against us, just like those dreams when you can’t run, but we stagger on and on until my legs turn to jelly, my thighs on fire. Jay picks me up, throwing me over his shoulder and his supernatural strength powers us both through.

We round the corner onto fifty-third and from my angle, my head hanging down Jay’s back, I see a parade of people coming toward us. They’re running, a stampede, their angry screams and shouts climbing.

We don’t belong here, Jay tells me. They know we can leave and they can’t and they’ll try and stop us. It doesn’t matter. Here we are.

Suddenly the street starts to rise above me as Jay runs down the stairs into the subway station. It’s familiar. Too familiar. I feel like I’m heading into a tomb, that the ceilings will collapse on us and we’ll be buried here for all time.

Down, down, down.

Further than the station is in the world above.

Jay leaps over turnstiles made of razor blades like a track and field star and I bounce wildly on his shoulder, his strong arm keeping me from flying off.

Then he runs down a few steps, the slick, oozing tile walls of the stairwell rising up around us like a crypt, and stops.

Suddenly, like he hits a wall.

I’m about to ask him what happened but before I can form the question, my mouth goes dry with the acidic tang of pure fear. Terror buzzes in my brain like angry yellow jackets. I’m certain . . . certain . . .

I am no longer Ada.

I am just a small mass of tissue, insignificant against purest horror.

Put her down, a voice says.

No, not one voice but a hundred voices say, metallic and empty, all at once.

Jay’s grip on me intensifies.

You’ll have to kill me first, he says.

You know we can’t, the voices say, buzzing like a million flies on shit.

Then we have a problem, is Jay’s firm response.

I try and twist to turn around to see but can’t. I can only stare up the staircase.

The mob has crowded around the top, staring down at us with hateful eyes.

But they don’t dare come closer.

Because there is fear in their eyes too.

They watch and wait. I know they want us to be ripped to shreds.

Perhaps we will be, the thought comes into my head.

I find that I don’t care.

We have a bargain for you, the voices say. A fair one. Give us the girl. We’ll give you the mother. It’s what she wants.

I’m not sure who they’re talking about. She? Me? Mother?

The words make no sense.

Blood leaks out of my eyes, drips onto the stairs. I think my soul might be contained in some of those drops. It too wants to leave me, leave this place.

Stay with me! Jay’s voice comes slamming into my head like fist. Ada!

My head jerks up and a snuffling noise escapes my lips.

The crowd at the top of the stairs stamp their feet, drool spilling from their gaping, hungry mouths.

No bargain, Jay says. Her mother, Ingrid, doesn’t belong here. Neither does Ada.

He puts special emphasis on Ingrid and Ada. All it took was a second for me to forget them again.

She’s Ingrid. My mother. I’m Ada.