Page 91 of Heart and Soul
“He’s running!” Jay shouts over the screaming engine and blasting wind. The other boat has a huge lead on us. “Take the wheel!”
I don’t like being on boats, much less driving them, but it won’t do any good to protest right now. Jay doesn’t see me asmeright now. He sees an asset that he can use in his pursuit of a goal. One revenant is killed. The next is getting away. That’s all there is.
On the floor of the boat is an East Side thug, unconscious. The original driver, I assume. When I take the wheel, Jay steals a pistol from the guy’s belt. Then he slaps his face until the guy snaps awake with a start.
“Swim!” Jay orders. The thug balks, but when Jay points the gun at his leg and starts counting, the guy throws himself into the river.
I happily turn the wheel over to Jay. He guns the throttle, and we bounce from wave to wave; wind whips my hair; sprays of ice water sting my face. Jay is impervious to it all, eyes locked on the other speedboat, too far ahead. We’ll never catch him.
Jay’s tuxedo coat is shredded, hanging from his arms. I help him untangle it from one arm, then the other. His dress shirt is spotted with blood in several places. I don’t ask if he’s all right, because I know that information is irrelevant at the moment. All he’s thinking about is what to do next. How to win.
I see police sirens ahead—Detroit’s river cops in their black-and-white police boats. Officers wave neon batons, directing all boat traffic off the river, away from the burning Ambassador Bridge. One police boat guides a massive freighter into dock at a shipyard. The sight jolts me with a sudden insight. Like most revelations, it seems very simple—even obvious—in hindsight, but in the moment of breakthrough, I can hardly keep up with the race of my thoughts, each one reaching further back into memory and logic.
Gripping wet upholstery with my claws, I fight against the turbulence, climbing into a position at Jay’s shoulder. I scream over the chaos into his ear. “Jay, this isn’t it! The bridge wasn’t the thing!”
I don’t think he hears me. He shows no sign of acknowledgment.
I keep at it. “All this—the bombs, the bridge—it wasn’t just an answer to the Windsor clan. It was a trigger! To force all the boats on the river to have to dock.” When he still doesn’t respond, I grip his elbow. “Jay, they’re going after Arael! They’re going to kill him.” At last, his hand falters on the throttle, and he looks at me with grave comprehension. “The underworld prison is one of these giant cargo ships, and it was headed this way. Hillerman told me it was coming upriver. Erie freezes over, so they have to winter on Lake Huron. That would bring them straight through here.”
I’m just about to say that I don’t know if I can recognize the cargo ship, but just then a bright explosion rises from an upcoming shipyard. Docked there is the Seawaymax bulk carrier, with its three domes the size of football fields. The five-story control tower is on fire.
“But I thought all this was top secret,” Jay says. “You didn’t even know about it until she took you there. How did they know about it? Are you telling me this is an inside job? Somebody at the Agency?”
The answer is obvious to me. “No. Hillerman was double-crossed. It’s Theo Coltrane, master of the Cleveland clan. Everything fits. The East Side horde needs a replacement for Henry Stadther, and Coltrane has access to Arael. Coltrane wants the Detroit territory, but so does his only remaining rival, Windsor, which is bigger and closer.”
Jay gets it. “So they decide to scratch each other’s backs. The bridge was two birds with one stone. Strike at Windsor, while also forcing the cargo ship to dock.”
“Jay, if they get to Arael…if they kill him, we’ve lost. They’ll find him a new body, and there’ll be no stopping them from taking over Detroit.”
When Bowler Hat’s speedboat cuts sharply, heading toward a marina, Jay freezes with indecision. He can either chase after the revenant or continue on to the cargo ship—we can’t do both. I feel bad. I know how much Jay wants to nail that bastard. I’m the one who set him free, told him to go fetch, to put me out of his thoughts, and yet here I am trying to pull him back, to force him another way.
I put my hand on his arm. “Jay. Arael’s a warmonger. He’ll destroy the city.”
He eases off the throttle, watching the speedboat. There’s still time to go after it. Honestly, I won’t push back if Jay makes that choice. In fact, I’ll be relieved. It’s by far the safer choice, and I could still reassure myself that Itriedto do the right thing.
Jay sides with me. Throttling up, he takes us straight for the bulk carrier. We’re close enough now to see the muzzle flashes of automatic gunfire from the tower and on deck. It’s a war zone.
My head cranes back as we approach. I had no idea how high these things float above the waterline. The hull is a sixty-foot wall of smooth steel.
“How the hell do we get up there?”
Jay points ahead. Toward the back of the ship, I can barely make out a thin line running straight up from the water to the deck. When we finally reach it, I see that the thin line is a series of metal rungs.
Jay scrapes our boat along the mammoth hull, and then, without hesitation, jumps onto the rungs and begins climbing. I scramble to follow him, but the rocking boat makes me lose my balance. With an awkward leap, I barely manage to make the transfer. When this is over, I’ll be happy to never step foot on another boat.
We climb and climb, and the higher we go, the more this wall seems to tip back at an inverted angle. I feel like I’m trying to climb across a ceiling. We’re almost to the top when another explosion from the tower shakes the whole world. I cling to the rungs, gritting my teeth against the sting of frozen steel against my cheek.
At last, I pull myself over the lip of the deck and throw myself down next to Jay beside a series of enormous pipes. On the other side of the ship, next to the dock, a battle rages between the FBI’s Underworld Task Force and the alliance of East Side demons and Cleveland vampires. The agents have guns, but the enemy outnumbers them 3 to 1, and the vamps are fast, spreading out into flanking positions. The FBI will be overrun.
Jay checks his pistol, makes sure it’s loaded. “We’ve got to move Arael. Where’ve they got him?”
“First cargo hold. There’s a hatch in the control room across from the cafeteria.”
Jay moves out, running in a crouch, keeping his head down. I’m slow to follow. Everything’s happening so fast. My arms and legs are rubber from the ladder climb. My body shivers uncontrollably, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold, or the shock of my plunge from the bridge finally settling in. Closing my eyes, I suck in a breath and blow it out, trying to steady my racing heart.
I pick myself up and stumble after Jay, but I only get a handful of steps before I’m stopped by a terrible sight: Agent Hillerman is taking cover behind the corner of a cargo hold roof, and at her feet Russo lies flat on his back, clutching at his chest. He’s covered in blood. Hillerman fires at a group of demons, keeping them back, but she doesn’t see the tall thug sneaking up behind her.
I don’t stop to think. I sprint on pure adrenaline. The thug makes his move, lunging at Hillerman, but I intercept him at the last moment, throwing my shoulder into his chest.Crack!His head slams against the cargo bay, and he drops like a rag doll.
