Blitz

Book 0: The Rook Files

by Daniel O'Malley

Genres: Historical Fantasy; World War II; Fantasy action & adventure

Synopsis

In this historical fantasy, a new recruit to the most powerful supernatural intelligence agency on Earth is accused of going rogue—and must go on the run to clear her name.

September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela, the most sensible of them, breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster.
 
Through a city torn by the Blitz, the friends must hunt the enemy before he kills again. Their task will take them from the tunnels of the Underground to the halls of power, where they will discover the secrets that a secret organization must keep even from itself.
 
Today. Lynette Binns, a librarian with a husband and child, is a late recruit to the Checquy, having discovered only as an adult her ability to electrify everyday objects with her touch. After completing her training, she is assigned to examine a string of brutal murders and quickly realizes that all bear the unmistakable hallmark of her own unique power. Unable to provide an alibi and determined to prove her innocence, she flees, venturing into the London underworld to find answers. But now she is prey, being tracked by her own frighteningly capable comrades.
 
As Lyn fights off powered thugs and her own vengeful colleagues, she will find that the solution to the murders and to the mystery of her own past lies in the events of World War II, and the covert actions of three young women during the Blitz.

Release date: October 18, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 8

Sample

The three women stood in the sky above London and waited for the Blitz to come.

It was bitterly cold, so they wore goggles and thickly padded boilersuits with many layers underneath. Each of them had, slung over her shoulder by a slender strap, a buff cardboard box holding a gas mask. Far above them, the thinnest of crescent moons shone with a faint light, and thick clouds were smeared about the sky so that the stars were almost entirely concealed.

“And here they come,” said Bridget grimly. She pointed to the east, across Limehouse and Poplar. It was too dark to see the aircraft themselves, but she could hear the very faintest droning as the night winds carried the sound of the bombers toward them.

“Are we sure it’s the Germans?” asked Usha. Her tone was dry, but it lacked her usual calm. Her hand was firm in Bridget’s but she gave a little nervous clench as she spoke, and Bridget looked at her, startled. For the previous twenty-three nights, she, Usha, and Pamela had sat in the cellar of their mistress’s house and listened to German bombs falling above them. Every thud that sent dust down from the ceiling had made Bridget want to scream, but the Indian woman never turned a hair, even when the thuds were horribly close and it seemed like the world was about to collapse on them.

Even now, Usha was able to maintain a bearing of unruffled sophistication while wearing a boilersuit and a balaclava and standing on absolutely nothing ten thousand feet above a city that was being attacked. Admittedly, it was her supernatural power that was keeping the two of them up in the air, so of course she was more at ease than Bridget, but she should have seemed at least a little bit discommoded. It just seemed terrifically unfair.

Next to them, Pamela hung silently in the air. Unlike the other two, she wasn’t wearing a balaclava, and her face in the faint moonlight was expressionless. Her arms were crossed, and the only movement about her was her hair as the air that held her up rippled over and around her. As always, Bridget found her presence reassuring. The only full-fledged Pawn of the three of them, she was easygoing when off duty, but when she was in her professional mode, as now, she was completely focused. She was always calm, cool, and collected, whether responding to a scheduling mix-up or a mass murder.

The blacked-out city spread out beneath the three of them, and they could make out only the vaguest impressions of the buildings and streets. The winding strip of the Thames, however, was clear.

Over the past few months, as she’d gotten to know Usha and Pamela and they had begun taking her on flying jaunts, Bridget had learned it was best if she didn’t think of the vista as the actual ground but rather as an elaborate picture that had nothing to do with her present situation. For her, the key to flying comfortably under someone else’s power was maintaining an air of detachment. Otherwise, it was too easy to start feeling panicky, and panicking in those circumstances was never a good idea.

“Bastards,” said Pamela tightly. “Bloody bastards.” Bridget looked to her in surprise. The blond woman didn’t even seem aware that she’d spoken, but she had shifted, and her arms were now at her sides. It was surprising, though. Pamela was normally far too disciplined to allow herself any sort of emotional outburst, even on the most terrifying missions.

Although this isn’t really a mission, Bridget thought. We’re just observing. Very definitely only observing. Lady Carmichael had been reluctant to give the three of them permission to go up into the skies during the bombing, and it had only been after repeated requests that she’d agreed. Even then, she was very firm in her restrictions.

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay in the shelter,” the Lady had said sympathetically. “I feel a bit trapped myself sometimes. So you may go out, but you must absolutely keep yourselves away from the airplanes and the bombing. Well away. And you don’t come back to the ground until the all-clear siren has gone. I don’t want even the slightest possibility of any of you getting hurt.”

And so the three of them stood there just watching as balls of fire flared and spread on the ground.

Except that, from what Bridget could see in the darkness, Pamela’s hands were clenched, and her lips were pressed together tightly. Normally, Pamela diverted away the worst of the winds, but now the air about them swirled and snapped, flapping their clothes.

The Nazis are bombing her city, and she hates it.

I don’t blame her. I hate it too.

As they watched, there was a distant flash on the ground. A few seconds later, they heard the muffled crump of the bomb. Then another flash and another eventual boom. Then more. The glow of fire grew and outlined buildings.

“They’re hitting Wapping tonight,” said Usha. “Hard. I suppose they’re targeting the docks.”

“And nothing’s being done,” said Bridget. “Why aren’t they doing something?” The women could see more and more explosions flaring in the darkness. “It burns me that we knew they were coming, we could hear them, and now it’s all just happening.” A blaring started coming up out of the city with a chorus of roaring sirens rising and falling.

“There goes moaning Minnie,” said Usha.

“Yes, finally,” said Bridget. “They could have been sounding that alarm minutes ago if we’d just—”

“Bridget,” said Usha.

“Yes?”

“Stop. Just stop.”

Bridget just stopped. They were both apprentices, and Usha had been with the Checquy for only three years, but at twenty-four, the Indian woman was six years older. That combined with her natural authority made her words seem as good as an order. Bridget stared down at the ground beneath them, half expecting to see a torrent of little lights as people streamed from their houses to backyard Anderson shelters and Tube stations.

But of course that’s ridiculous. She had read that people had taken to arriving early at the Underground, as early as four in the afternoon, to be certain of getting a good spot for their bedding and food. And no one is going to risk a flashlight in their own backyard, she thought. Not when they say a Jerry pilot can see the light from a cigarette. She was a trifle dubious about that claim, though.

As she mused, searchlights sliced up from the ground and swept about, and the women could hear the crack of the antiaircraft guns.

“Does the ack-ack actually hit much?” asked Bridget finally.

“I don’t believe so,” said Usha. “I gather that they’re firing to make people feel better as much as from any belief that they’ll hit a bomber. It’s good to be seen doing something.”

“Well, that’s a depressing thought,” said Bridget. She squinted into the darkness. The sound of the bombers was now lost in the noise of the attack, and she couldn’t see any sign of the actual airplanes. There were supposed to be British Hurricanes flying about, fighting back, but she’d read reports that such efforts were useless, and she could see why.

How on earth could they find the enemy’s planes in this darkness?

The explosions were still coming, spreading out across the city, an irregular line of flashes advancing toward them. The noise was getting louder too, and Bridget cocked her head, listening. She pulled her balaclava up over her goggles to better focus on hearing and felt the biting wind on her face.

“One of them is coming this way,” she said. She looked all about her. “Ah, it’s there.” She pointed up and to the left. A patch of darkness was cutting through the clouds a few thousand feet above them. “It’s pretty low, really.”

“Probably hoping for a good shot at—oh!” exclaimed Usha. “Look over there! I think they’ve hit a church!” Bridget squinted, following the other woman’s pointing finger. She opened her mouth to say something but was suddenly smacked in the face and chest by a violent, howling torrent of wind. Usha’s hand tightened around hers as the two of them were buffeted backward.

For a single horrible moment, Usha must have lost her focus, because the two of them dropped. The fall was no more than a few feet, but it seemed to last for a long time, and then they were once again standing on empty, impossibly solid air like a glass floor. Their knees buckled, and the wind blew them back and sent them skidding along the surface that Usha had created. They scrabbled on the sky before managing to bring themselves to a stop, then braced themselves against the wind and stood.

Bridget let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and carefully loosened her death grip on Usha’s hand. She thanked the heavens that Usha had spread the gravity out rather than simply making a small platform and for the ten-foot-long leather strap that connected their wrists in case of nasty accidents. Then: Pamela! They looked around for their comrade, but she was gone.

“Where did she go?” shouted Bridget above the roar of the wind. Without Pamela keeping them in a bubble of comparative calm, they were exposed to all the force of the winter night. Bridget’s eyes met Usha’s, and her stomach twisted. They looked below, scanning the darkness for a sign of Pamela falling, tumbling down to the city, perhaps unconscious or sick or wounded. But there was nothing, no flicker of movement.

Where is she? Oh God, where is she? Has she already hit?

“There she is!” exclaimed Usha.

“Where? Where?” asked Bridget desperately, peering down into the darkness.

“Not there—up!” Bridget looked up. She could just see Pamela coursing away from them. She was clearly alive and well and directing all her will to her flight.

“But what the bloody hell is she doing?” shouted Usha. She sounded more irritated than concerned. Bridget squinted at their comrade thoughtfully. Pamela was flying away at a tremendous speed but curving up as well, and her arms were in front of her, almost clawing at the air.

“Aw, Christ,” said Bridget to herself, and Usha somehow heard her through the wind.

“What?”

“She’s going after that Jerry plane, the bomber!” shouted Bridget. Usha’s head whipped back to stare incredulously at Pamela. Beyond their friend, they could just make out the shape of the aircraft, which did not appear to be flying in a straightforward manner. It was being tossed about, and as they watched, it abruptly dropped several dozen feet. That has to be Pamela’s doing, thought Bridget.

“Has she gone mad?” exclaimed Usha.

Bridget could only shrug helplessly. How high is that plane? Is there enough air for Pamela? The air where they were standing was already bitingly cold in their throats, a sign that they were at the limits of safety. Pamela, of course, could go higher than they could. Not only was she more accustomed to it—in her lifetime of training, she had spent hours and hours at extreme altitudes—but she could also force some air to come with her. Still, even she could not go as high as a plane whose crew wore oxygen masks. What does she mean to do? Can she bring down the plane? Does she have the strength? There were ten thousand things that made what was happening impossible.

Plus, of course, there was the one thing that made it absolutely impossible.

“We’ll have to go after her!” shouted Usha. “Try to stop her!” Bridget nodded helplessly. Their hands tightened around each other’s, and then the invisible ground vanished beneath their feet. Bridget’s stomach lurched as they were suddenly tearing forward and upward, like divers falling diagonally up rather than straight down. Bridget hurriedly pulled the balaclava over her face before the wind could snatch it off her head.

The wind howled around them and buffeted them about. The thin strap holding Bridget’s gas-mask box snapped wildly in the gale and hit her on the back before the strap broke and the box was gone behind them, abruptly subjected to the gravity of the Earth.

Good luck, little box, thought Bridget ridiculously. She couldn’t help but pity it, torn from one plunge to another. Because with Usha, it wasn’t flying, it was falling. There was no air carrying them, no sheath of invisible energy wrapped around them. They were simply plummeting upward, and the source of their gravity, the point pulling them with all the mass of the Earth, was Pamela.

But what if she’s going higher than we can go? thought Bridget. She could just make out the distant figure of their friend and the German bomber. The plane had turned and was now flying in a broad curve before them, clearly trying to escape London and the bizarre conditions that kept forcing it down. Every few moments, it plunged several dozen feet almost on the spot. Bridget winced at the thought of the effort Pamela must be bringing to bear. Her friend was powerful, and the plane had already been flying lower than most bombers, but dragging it down had to be incredibly difficult, especially since she was coursing after it with horrendous speed.

The speed of Usha and Bridget’s upward fall was continuing to increase, and the screaming of the wind almost drowned out the sound of the bombing attack behind them. Still, despite the turbulence, Bridget realized that the air was actually helping to push them along. We must be in Pamela’s slipstream. She knew that her friend would be drawing air from all around to keep herself aloft and rush her after her prey. I think we’re catching up to her!

Meanwhile, even as they gained on her, Pamela was gaining on the aircraft. The beleaguered bomber had slowed considerably, and as they watched, it abruptly began to descend to a level at which the three women could breathe. Then Bridget felt the pressure of acceleration as Usha warped the rules of physics around them a little more.

Can we catch up to her? thought Bridget desperately. And if they did, then what? Would they tackle her in midair? Perhaps we’ll be able to drag her down. Or slap some sense into her. The din from the bomber roared in their ears. It was now flying directly across their path, and they could hear the thunderous cracks of the wind striking the aircraft.

What does she mean to do? Bridget wondered. Pamela was drawing closer and closer to the bomber; she looked as if she meant to start punching it. She’s crazy! Pamela’s powers over air didn’t give her any special physical strength or resistance to injury. She could call down incredible force, but she could still be hurt by the bulk of the aircraft or by…

The gunners! Bridget suddenly remembered, aghast. She’d read the files and knew that the Heinkel had machine guns to protect itself. There were guns at the front, at the rear, on its back, on its belly, sticking out from the sides. The five-man crew included three gunners and a bombardier, who would also act as the nose gunner.

“Pamela!” Bridget screamed at her. “You’ve got to stop!” It seemed impossible that their friend could hear her, but she had to try. As they watched, Pamela closed the gap between herself and the plane. She dived down under the fuselage and kept pace below the aircraft.

There would be a gunner lying down in the enclosure that bulged out of the aircraft’s belly. He would be looking ahead, but could he miss seeing her?

At Bridget’s side, Usha shouted something incredulous, but the actual words were lost in the gale. For a moment, their course had altered violently, yanked down to follow Pamela’s maneuvers, but then they swooped up, and Bridget could tell that Usha had shifted their focus of gravity from Pamela to the aircraft itself.

Good thinking. With the unpredictable movements of the plane and the presence of those scything propellers, something could easily go wrong—messily wrong—if they tried to follow her under. For all the speed she could muster, Usha possessed nothing like Pamela’s agility in the open air. They plunged toward the bomber.

“Usha, go for the side!” she shouted. “There’s a gunner on the back!” The Indian woman nodded tightly, and their fall curved a little.

“Get your feet ready!” shouted Usha, and she twisted in the air to reorient herself and pulled Bridget with her.

They sliced past the aircraft’s tail, and as its side came under them, they paused in midair, and then, through Usha’s will, the side of the plane was where down was, and they landed on top of it, just ahead of the tail.

“Brace!” exclaimed Usha. They fell to their knees, as firmly planted on the metal of the aircraft as they would be on the deck of a ship. The wind rushed past them, ready to push them back if they stood up, but they crouched against it.

My God, she’s good, thought Bridget weakly. The artistry required to guide them through the air and bring them to this point was incredible. “What now?” shouted Bridget. “Can you see her?”

“No! You?”

Bridget shook her head. She scanned all around, but in the darkness, she couldn’t find Pamela; she didn’t know if she was still under the plane. “Then we move!” declared Usha. She pointed to the front of the plane, and Bridget nodded.

The two women crawled over the metal side of the Heinkel to where it curved down to the plane’s belly. It was awkward, since they had to keep holding hands, and the aircraft still pitched about occasionally, but for them, the metal was the ground, so they didn’t need to worry about falling off. The wind was nowhere near as bad as it had been. The aircraft was still descending, but far more smoothly.

They had to follow a tricky, narrow route as they moved forward. On one side, below them, a gunner’s nest bulged out. Above them, a machine gun jutted out of the aircraft’s side, with spy holes for that gunner to peer through.

But although Bridget scanned the area every few moments, there was no sign of their comrade in the darkness.

Then, as the two women drew near the glass dome that formed the nose of the aircraft, Bridget’s eye was caught by a flicker of movement. She gasped and tugged on Usha’s hand to get her attention.

As the two of them watched in disbelief, Pamela rose up out of the darkness in front of the plane. Her arms were spread wide, and her face was emotionless. She must have been flying backward, because she remained about fifteen yards ahead of the bomber.

“Oh… crikey,” said Bridget. She was braced for the plane’s front machine gun to burst into action and shred her friend, but nothing happened.

Pamela suddenly lunged toward the cockpit. They lost sight of her, but they could hear the sound of her landing on the glass and her distant raised voice. She was screaming. If there were words, Bridget could not make them out.

The plane jinked abruptly, which Bridget absolutely could not blame it for. She could only imagine what had gone through the minds of the men in the cockpit when they were suddenly confronted by a screaming face swooping out of the darkness and pressing itself against the glass in front of them twelve thousand feet up. The engine roared, and the stars above wheeled madly as the plane was flung into a tight curving turn. Bridget’s stomach turned too as her eyes argued with her inner ears. Thanks to Usha’s firm grip on gravity, it didn’t feel as if the world had been tipped on its side, only as if a horrendous new wind was blasting them.

The two women clinging to the fuselage exchanged looks and nods, then resumed their frantic crawl toward the front. The plane kept shifting direction, twisting in the air as if trying to shake off an insect. Keep going, Bridget told herself grimly. Keep… going. Finally, they reached the front and peered up through the glass dome.

Despite the plane’s wild tossings-about, Pamela remained fixed to the glass. She was still screaming, and as they watched, she hammered her fist against the windshield. Is she trying to punch through? thought Bridget dazedly. This was not the focused attack that she would expect from Pamela. This was wild, incoherent rage.

Bridget felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to look at Usha. On three! her friend mouthed at her, and Bridget nodded. She could visualize the plan without any explanation. On the count of three, Usha would switch their gravity, fixing it on Pamela, and they would fall onto her and wrestle her away from the plane and out into the night sky.

And then what do we do about the Nazis that have seen her? she thought. The entire situation had all sorts of dire implications, and she could not think them out now. Bugger it, she decided. This is the best we can do. The two of them brought themselves up to their knees. Usha held up her closed fist and unfolded a finger. One.

Bridget focused on Pamela, flailing madly at the glass. She could visualize the fall—just a few yards, really.

Two.

It would need to be done right; they had to tackle their friend and keep hold of her to stop her escaping and coming back to the plane. Then Usha could get them safely down to the ground. Bridget tensed in preparation.

Three gunshots rang out, bursting through the glass. Bridget could see the sparkling sprays of glass powder as the holes were punched out. She shot a look at Usha, whose eyes were wide in shock. Her hand was still, the third finger forgotten. Bridget snapped her gaze back to Pamela, who, as if in slow motion, toppled back and away from the glass. She fell down past them, into the darkness, and was swept away under the plane.

“No!” screamed Bridget. “Oh Jesus, no!”

The plane leveled out, presumably as the occupants came back to a world where the impossible didn’t happen. The cockpit wouldn’t be pleasant with holes shot in the glass, but they would be wearing oxygen masks. They could now focus on a nice normal problem, like flying an aircraft over a city whose residents would like to shoot them down. At that moment, through her grief, in the back of her mind, Bridget almost found herself envying them—that sounded so uncomplicated.

“We’ve got to go after her!” She hauled Usha to her feet. They were about to turn and run back along the underside of the plane when there came a massive rushing of air beneath them, and Pamela sped by, swooping back up toward the cockpit. If she had been shot, there was no sign of it, and now she was accompanied by a roaring sound, and the air about her shivered and blurred.

As they watched, Pamela landed again on the nose of the plane. There were more gunshots, but they didn’t connect, glancing off the torrent of wind that she had wrapped around herself. And then there were no more shots, only the unmistakable sound of someone having run out of bullets. The whole world seemed to fall silent; even the roar of the engines faded away in the distance. Pamela was no longer screaming. Instead, there was a look of deadly intentness on her face. Usha and Bridget watched as, with dreadful slowness, their Pawn friend lifted her hand and placed it against the glass.

“Pamela!” shouted Usha. “Pamela!” She looked down at them and jerked her head to the side. The message was clear: Leave. “No! Come with us!” But Pamela had already turned her gaze back to the windshield and whatever she saw through it. Were the men inside as hypnotized as Usha and Bridget? The two women could not take their eyes off the look of grim determination on Pamela’s face.

And then everything flared burning white.

Bridget fell back, sprawled on the metal of the plane, and instinctively flung her free hand over her eyes. Her other hand, though, she kept firmly clutched on Usha’s.

What has she done? For a second, she thought that Pamela had somehow summoned a thunderbolt to smite the invaders. But as the light continued to burn even through her fingers, she realized what had happened. They had been pinioned by a searchlight on the ground.

Great booms thundered below them, which she blearily recognized as the antiaircraft fire. Of course. Where there’s a spotlight, there will be ack-ack.

Are… are we in range of those guns?

There was an explosion of light and noise way off to the side. Deafened, Bridget and Usha flinched as a concussive wave of heat smacked into them. The aircraft juddered and tilted for a moment, and there was a rattling of metal against the fuselage. Dazed, she realized it was shrapnel. I guess we are in range. The crews on the ground would be working feverishly to get more shells into the air, bringing their guns to bear against this one aircraft that had come so low. As Bridget pictured it, there was another explosion, this one behind them, and the aircraft bucked again. This time she could swear that she heard the shrapnel whizzing by her.

We have to get out of here! We’re going to be killed by our own guns!

And then under Bridget’s back, the metal of the plane shrieked as a tremendous pulse tore through it. Screws and bolts were forced out of their places, seams and welds tore, and the skin of the aircraft buckled and warped as all the air inside was commanded into a hurricane. Pieces of metal were sent scything out and away. Bridget flung up a hand as a jagged shard spun at her, and it bounced off her palm. She could smell fuel in the air.

“Usha, we’ve got to—” She was cut off by a tremendous lurch beneath her. She and Usha were thrown into the air as the plane jolted, faltered, and began to twist away from above them. No longer holding hands, they fell apart.

It’s all right, Bridget told herself firmly as she plummeted through the air. It’s all right. No need to panic; we’ve got the belt. The leather strap that connected their wrists pulled taut. See? Her eyes followed it to Usha. The girl was directly above her, her arm outstretched, as it had been yanked down by the tether. She looked at Bridget dazedly, but her eyes focused and she nodded. All we have to do is haul ourselves to each other and join hands, and then Usha will have a little word with gravity. We’ve done this before; we’ve practiced in the sky with the belt. The lovely, lovely belt.

Bridget’s eye was caught by a sparkle on the belt, a shine that hadn’t been there before. She squinted and realized that a fragment of shrapnel had speared the leather. It was lodged a few feet from her hand and had cut the strap almost in half.

Well, that’s not good, but there’s still no need to panic. Absolutely no need to panic at all.

But, you know, you should still probably hurry the hell up, she told herself.

She reached with her other hand and was about to pull herself up toward Usha when there was an earsplitting detonation and a burst of light below them. An antiaircraft shell had gone off, and though they were far from the fire, and no shrapnel hit them, the concussion wave swept up and struck them.

Whereupon the belt snapped.

All right, now you can panic.

Bridget screamed. The blast set her tumbling in the air, and the world spun beneath her. She caught glimpses of the plane falling, a wing lost, explosions from the ack-ack blossoming, and the beams of the searchlights sweeping back and forth. There were fires in the city and thick clouds of smoke that glowed momentarily as bombs fell. It was as if she were falling into hell.

As she flailed through the air, Bridget looked around frantically for Usha. She caught a glimpse of the plummeting bomber silhouetted against the burning city. Was it beneath her? She had lost all track of how things related to each other. Bridget hadn’t caught sight of Pamela, but the trio’s dark boilersuits, ideal for concealing them from outside eyes, were also ideal for concealing them from one another. So make yourself more visible! She tore off her balaclava and let her hair fly about—its red wasn’t as visible as Pamela’s blond, but it was something, even in the dark. She ripped off her gloves as well. Maybe my hands will catch the light and she’ll see me.

“Usha! Usha!” she screamed. She flung out her arms and legs, trying to arrest her mad spinning, but it did no good. The wind roared in her ears, and the flash of another spotlight cut across her. She could make out the shapes of buildings beneath her. The booming of the antiaircraft guns was now thunder, blasting all around her. She could see their flashes. The rising smoke was in her mouth. The ground was coming up and up and up to her… “Oh God!” she screamed. I’m going to die! She closed her eyes. Gerald.

And then she felt a hand closing tight in her hair, and the horrible, blessed, stomach-turning sensation of coming to the peak of a jump and starting to fall back down, away from the Earth. Disbelieving, she opened her eyes and saw Usha above her, her face intent. Saved! They surged up, away from the smoke and the fire and the horrendous sound of the bombs and guns, away from the sound of the bomber crashing into the city. They soared, slowing gently until they finally stopped on solid air.

“Oh God.” Bridget dropped to her knees and vomited. Usha kept her hand in Bridget’s hair, holding it out of her face. Even in her stunned, trembling state, it was mildly interesting to watch the puke falling between her hands and continuing on its way down through the sky. God help anyone it lands on, she thought shakily. Gasping, she spat again and again, then wiped her mouth and nose on her sleeve. The freezing night air now felt much better on her face. It felt clean. She breathed it in, cold in her throat.

“Are you all right?” asked Usha.

Bridget reached up and took her friend’s hand. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Usha squeezed her hand and helped her up to her feet. “Have you seen any sign of Pamela?”

Usha shook her head. “No. Th