Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter Eight: A Frailty of Substance

They decided to head out about midnight. They weren't going to get full coverage haz-mat suits, let alone anything that could start coping with radiation, so Hawk chose not to bother. Instead, she picked out comfortable jeans and a black t-shirt. Alex did the same. She reorganized her anting kit to something more useful, and, after a minute of thought, added a garden trowel and a handful of spoons.

Alex spotted this. "Spoons?"

"I need a small shovel. The garden trowel won't cut it and I can't dig with tweezers."

"But spoons." He repeated.

Her smile stiffened. "It works for small things."

"I thought you didn't dig up Queens," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't dig up established Queens, and I suck at spotting fresh founding chambers."

Banter covers fear the way duct tape fixes broken windows.

Her hands were shaking as she got back in the car.

Alex put his hand over hers. "It's alright, babe."

"I don't break rules," she said. "I'm doing this and it's terrifying."

"Then give me the word. We can sit this out," Alex said.

"You won't," she said, and his eyes registered the hit, even if his smile did not. His wife had no expectations of law abiding behavior when he was left alone, and he knew it. "And I...I can't, Alex. Does that makes sense? Like, this morning my whole universe were ants and your clients and my mother."

"And your mother's cake pearls," Alex said.

She let the barb pass. "And now...now those are just the things I have to protect. Because a world that has stuff like what killed Elizabeth Cummings' dog..." she shuddered. "No. I feel like I'm being an idiot...but I don't feel like there is a choice here, either."

"Ditto," Alex said, after a moment, and put the car in gear.

They parked well outside of the evacuation zone. It had grown in the hours since the Wests had left, to cover several more blocks. They parked in the lot of an abandoned convenience store, its windows boarded shut and doors padlocked. Not because of this evacuation, either. Weeds grew amid glints of broken glass, oil stains dark upon pavement. Footsteps echoed like shovels on a grave.

"Urban decay," Alex said, studying a particular bit of graffiti. It was inviting the viewer to perform certain incestuous acts with their mother. "That has 'affulenza' all over it."

"Not exactly prime gang territory," Hawk agreed, and they began to walk down the empty street towards Elizabeth Cummings' place.

"You'd be surprised at what the disaffected youth of America can manage to pull out of their subconscious," Alex said. "But this isn't that. It's little boys and girls trying to play at being gangsters. Problem is, sometimes they actually make it." He checked the GPS on his phone and sighed. "That way, I think."

Mrs. Cummings' house was about three blocks north and west of the abandoned convenience store. The Wests had decided early that it'd be easier to just cut through back yards than try and walk the streets. The streets would be patrolled. Still, they stuck to the pavement until they saw the evidence of other humans: car headlights, flashing towards their street.

Quickly and silently, Alex went for the nearest privacy hedge. Hawk followed, less quiet and a bit less silent, but she still got into the brush before the headlights reached their position. Huddled there, barely ready to breathe, they watched as the gray painted Jeep rode slowly down the street.