Page 72 of These Godly Lies
Her lips part around a quick intake of breath, fear swelling in her chest.
Khiran curses, grabbing her arm and pulling her from the taxi. “She brought Dante. Time to go.”
Time.
Dante must be The Timekeeper.
Khiran swats at a pamphlet, the littered paper still suspended as if on strings as he helps her out of the bright yellow cab. He steers her down alleyways, twisting and turning in ways that make her dizzy. She doesn’t know this New York. It’s been too long since she’s walked these streets, and the decades have changed the city into something she struggles to recognize. Another turn, and suddenly they’re back on a main street. There are dozens of cars on the road, hundreds of people lining the streets. They’re all motionless. Soundless. Anna’s not sure she’s ever seen anything so disconcerting, sounnatural, in her entire life.
“Why aren’t we suspended, too?” she asks, struggling to keep his pace while her eyes drink in their surroundings. Recognition nags at her, but it isn’t until she sees the pale columns of Federal Hall looming across the street that she understands why. The last time she was here, shattered glass littered the ground like confetti while her ears rang with the echoed blast of a bomb. Her hands were soaked red with the blood of a paperboy while she begged Khiran for help he could not give.
“If he gets close enough, we will be,” he says, weaving them through the crowd of stilled lives. “The more he has to stop, theharder it is to chain us down. He won’t be able to hold it for long, not in a city like this, but he won’t be alone.”
Marcia.
Suddenly, Anna realizes how empty her hands are. “The blade—”
“I have it,” he assures her. “When time restarts, we need to be ready.” The words are little more than a breath, but it sounds so loud in the silence. Anna catches him snatching a charcoal fedora off a young man’s head. There’s construction scaffolding up ahead, draped in canvas to keep the dust off the sidewalks. Khiran makes a beeline towards it, stopping only once they’re safely hidden behind the cloth. A group of workers sit along the benches, their laughter paused, dinged metal lunch boxes at their feet, and their half-eaten sandwiches still in their hands.
Khiran shrugs out of his vest, letting it fall and crumple to the ground. In the shadowed corner, Anna thinks it almost looks like the carcass of an animal. He puts the fedora on his head before his hands reach for the silk scarf at her throat. She can feel him tugging at the knot, the cool fabric sliding along the back of her neck as it slips away. Folding it in half, he covers her hair with it. “We want to make it as hard as possible to pick us from a crowd,” he murmurs, his nimble fingers retying the scarf under her chin.
All at once, the city outside the canvas turns loud—cars honking, people shouting on the streets. Behind them, the construction workers laugh. Khiran grabs her hand and leads her back onto the streets just as one of the crew notices them. His pace slows once they’re back on the sidewalk, matching a group of friends ahead of them. He stares straight ahead, expression blank. The grip on her hand, white-knuckled and trembling, is the only outward sign of fear.
Anna can feel her heartbeat in her throat, the flush of it making her feel hot. She wants, desperately, to look behind her. To see if she can find the face of the stranger looking for them. She resists the temptation and follows Khiran’s example.
For an excruciating ten minutes, they blend in with the crowd.She can see the bay. Anna leans in close, their shoulders brushing, and keeps her voice low. “Does it have to be Coney Island?”
“No, but jumping into the bay would cause too much of a scene. We would be caught before Kaia’s path could open.”
Anna nods, understanding. Coney Island isn’t the closest to the water, but it is the closest public beach. In the middle of the humid New York summer, its waters are sure to be full of people trying to beat the heat. She thinks of how carefully he searched for a secluded stretch of beach back in Mumbai, the minutes she waited before the tide shifted, and frowns. “How will we avoid being seen?”
Khiran cringes, guilt flashing across his features. “We don’t.”
Her heart stutters over the implication. “It will cause a panic.”
“Let it.” The words are as tight and unforgiving as the line of his jaw. “If that is the cost of saving you, I will pay it a thousand times over.”
“Khiran—”
“We have done enough for this world. Sacrificed enough,” he snaps, his hand flexing against hers. “Let it save us for a change.”
It’s a terrible idea. The sea parting is bound to cause chaos of biblical proportions, but Anna swallows the weak protest sticking in her throat. She’s not sure she believes the world owes them this—not convinced that kind of debt is something that is reimbursed so much as paid forward—but she loves him too much to deny them this chance. She holds his gaze, offering the smallest of nods. The world isn’t ready for proof of the divine, but she’s not ready to losehim.
Khiran hails another cab, pulling bills from his trouser pocket. “The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel is closer than the bridge,” he murmurs, subtly glancing up. “Marcia will likely take the high ground, especially since Dante is with her to stop the clock. It will offer us some coverage as well.”
As the taxi pulls up to the curb, Anna frowns at the sight of the American currency in his hand. She suspects it must have come from the same place as their fresh clothing—magic spun into existence those split seconds between one continent and the next. She’s relieved he had the foresight, because she certainly hadn’t.
They climb into the cab, Khiran handing the driver a generous wad of cash to take them to Coney Island and to keep the change.
Anna had heard about the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel when it was built back in the fifties; the papers had celebrated it as a feat of American engineering. The longest underwater tunnel. It’s disconcerting, driving down into the earth and under the bay. Pale tiles line the walls and ceilings, reflecting the light cast by the twin rows of bulbs lining either side of the tunnel. Anna grips the fabric of her skirt, trying not to think of the weight of the water above them.
The road levels out, a sign that they are fully beneath the bay. Anna swallows, trying to find comfort in the fact that the tunnel is only a little over a mile long. Then the taxi slows to a stop, the sound of horns echoing off the tiled walls as the traffic creeps to a standstill, and her pulse jumps. She looks to Khiran, the tunnel lights casting shadows over his face. He looks as worried as she is.
The driver curses, voice raspy and his salt and pepper brows furrowed in irritation as he fiddles with his radio. “Oy, anyone got eyes on what the holdup is in the Battery Tunnel?”
Static fills the cab as they wait for an answer. After a few seconds, a new voice filters through the speakers. “Strap yourself in for a wait. There’s a five car pile up blocking the southbound.” Another curse, this one longer and in Italian. Anna chooses not to embarrass him by disclosing that she understands every filthy word.
Khiran opens the car door.
