The Serpent's Curse, Lisa Maxwell [new reading .TXT] 📗

were no guarantees of safety in this life, not when a meddling thief could slip back through time and unwind your whole existence in the blink of an eye.

In the last sixteen years, North had learned that all he could depend on was the present as it stood in front of him, in all its beauty and all its terror. The past and the future were nothing but stories people told themselves to feel like they had some control over their lives. So when he thought about taking away Everett’s free will, even though he had the means, North found that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His boy had stood there with his shoulders back and asked North to treat him like the man he was becoming, and it would have been the gravest betrayal of that trust for North to do anything but agree.

Which is how North came to be standing on the roof of the Coliseum and discovering for maybe the first time exactly how much he hated being up high. Everett had taken to it like one of those little trained monkeys he’d seen once when the circus had come through Kansas City. It was like the boy didn’t realize how easy it would be to fall or how fragile his body actually was.

It took a lot longer to gain access to the roof than they’d been planning, even with the combination of Maggie’s formulations and Everett’s gadgets that they had on hand. They were running behind schedule, and by the time they made it up to the roof, the ceiling of the arena had already been drawn back. Above, the sky had turned dark, and all around them, as far as he could see, the city was lit up for the evening, like a million stars had fallen down from the heavens just for this occasion. North felt a sudden ache looking at it all, a yearning for his little house out on the lonesome prairie—for his wife and his children, too—all hundreds of miles away. There the sky was always spangled with stardust thick as milkweed in December.

“Ready?” Everett asked when a cheer erupted from the people assembled below. He looked up at the steel-framed structure that loomed over them, stretching stories into the night. He adjusted his pack of tools and other gear on his shoulder.

“Not really,” North admitted, but he followed Everett across the roof and to the base of the tower anyway.

He let Everett go first and watched as the boy began to scale the steel frame with a graceful ease. He was about to start climbing himself when something stopped him. He had the oddest sense that he should wait a minute longer… and that sense made his skin prickle in warning.

Turning, he scanned the expanse of the rooftop for whatever it was he was waiting for, because he knew well enough to trust that sense he’d been born with. Even with his watch long since ground into trash, North wasn’t helpless. The old magic that flowed through him had gotten him out of too many scrapes for him to ignore it now.

It wasn’t even two minutes later when the threat appeared, like he’d suspected it would. A man stepped from the shadows wearing a medallion that flashed in the dim light. He was a great big bear of a guy, and he was wearing a long, dark duster jacket that reminded North of the uniform worn by the Jefferson Guard years ago in St. Louis.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man said, already reaching for the weapon holstered beneath his long coat like some kind of cowboy from the Old West. But he’d barely had it out when something drew his attention. Instead of aiming the gun at North, he pointed it upward. Toward Everett.

North looked up to see that Everett had nearly reached the top of the tower. He was high enough that he was completely unaware of what was happening below, but not out of the range of that gun. His boy had a little farther to go before he would reach the safety of the platform at the top, where he could duck out of the line of fire. And Everett had no idea he was a target.

Without even considering the consequences, North ran for the man, slamming into him as the gun went off. The shot echoed through the nearby buildings. North felt a sharp burning in his side, but he ignored it and used all of his strength to shove the Guard to the ground. Right about when the Guard flipped him onto his back, North realized he was outmanned.

“Pa!” Everett called from above.

North looked up to see Everett starting to descend. “No!” he shouted. “I’ll take care of this!”

It was a lie born of hopeful bravado and desperation. The Guard was stronger than he looked, and North doubted that he’d be able to do much more than buy Everett a little time, but if that was all he could do, that was what he would do. “Go on! You’re almost—”

His words were cut short by the impact of the man’s fist across his face.

North’s vision doubled and blurred, but he held on to consciousness even as he tasted blood filling his mouth. North used his weight to shove the Guard off, rolling until they were nearly at the edge of the opening of the roof. Above, Everett was still hesitating, clearly torn and unsure about what to do, but the tower was beginning to crackle to life.

“You gotta go!” he shouted to his son, even as he struggled to keep the Guard from choking the life out of him. “You got once chance before this is all for nothing.”

Still, Everett didn’t move, and then, to North’s horror, he began to descend.

No. If that tower came to life, they were all goners—every single one of them—and everything North had done, everything Everett had risked, would be wasted.

North could feel his body starting