Free Tempest by Kelly Meding Page B

face must have looked like. “Sorry, what?”
    “I asked if you were ready to go? They’ll have heard the copter and be expecting us.”
    “Yeah. Right, okay.”
    He gave me another curious look, then led the way across the grass, south toward Fifty-Ninth Street. Aaron and I fell into step behind him. The last battle had been my first and only visit to Central Park, and we’d been dumped a few blocks north of here, so my only knowledge of this part of the city came from maps and reports. The few standing trees thinned out, replaced by various patches of planted flowers. Some were surrounded by rings of carefully placed rocks; others seemed to have been randomly dropped.
    We exited the Park at what had been Columbus Circle, and a large hole in the ground marked what had once been a subway entrance. They’d built a fence around it out of rubble from nearby buildings, probably to keep stray kids from wandering into the pit. To our left and down about half the block, a small cluster of people stood on the sidewalk outside an apartment building—the only one on the street I could see that had received any sort of care in the last decade. The exterior looked like white concrete, and every single window was intact (not something its neighboring buildings could boast). During New York’s heyday it wasn’t the prettiest place on the block, but now it was the only thriving spot in a dead metropolis.
    We’d found the Warren.
    I forced myself to keep a steady gait as I followed Simon and Aaron across the empty, quiet expanse of Fifty-Ninth. Counted one woman and four men by the street-level entrance, watching us with a variety of expressions: alarm, curiosity, maybe a little bit of dread. They all wore the black tracking collar I’d seen once before, when Simon first came to help us in Los Angeles. I recognized faces from my research and easily placed names and powers on each of them—not to mention lists of past crimes against the Rangers and the general public.
    Mai Lynn Chang stood at the front of the quintet, a slender woman with slashes of white in otherwise black hair. Hands folded in front of her, she gave Simon a polite nod, then fixed her eyes on me. Eyes that sparkled gold around a narrow catlike slit in the pupil.
    “Mai Lynn Chang, Warren representative,” she said. Her voice had a soft purr that was bizarrely soothing.
    “Ethan Swift,” I said. She offered her hand and I shook it, impressed by her firm grip.
    “Scott Torres,” Aaron said in his borrowed accent and shook, as well. “Encantado . ”
    “Welcome to the Warren,” she said. “Shall I assume you already know everyone standing behind me?” On our nods, she continued, “Excellent. We won’t waste time with too many introductions, then. There is quite a lot for you to see today.”
    She seemed pleasant enough, but I still felt like a prize cow being sized up by hungry butchers—none of the looks coming from the men in her company were terribly friendly. I’d never met any of her companions, not that I could recall, and it struck me that Mai Lynn was probably smart enough to keep our little delegation away from anyone who’d been at Belvedere Castle that final day. No sense in tossing gasoline on an already-roaring fire.
    Not unexpectedly, the tour began in the apartment building. The lobby had the look of an interior town square, with benches and chairs placed in small clusters on the left. Patio tables and chairs were scattered around on the right. Someone had even painted the ceiling blue. The walls had various murals of outdoor scenes from around the world—beaches with palm trees, leafy jungles, snowcapped mountains.
    “This is our common area,” Mai Lynn explained. “This building has been our meeting place for over a decade, long before the Warren. We wanted a place to come and socialize that had a spacious feeling, as well as protection in winter. It can seem somewhat claustrophobic when snow makes it difficult to go outside, but