Genesis. Volume 2

October 14, 1986. Chicago. Claire's apartment — South Side Bowling Club. Morning and day. The morning began with silence. Jenny woke first. She lay on the fold-out couch in Claire's living room, wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket, staring at the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster formed a pattern like a river map—or like the network of red threads she'd seen in the Circle's archive. Everything in this world was connected. Everything was a network. And she was part of it, whether she liked it or not. Last night's dinner sat in her memory like a shard of glass beneath the skin—impossible to remove, impossible to forget. Julian's face. Empty eyes. The spoon the maid lifted to his lips. And Cecilia, watching with pride. Jenny clenched her fist. The ring with the letter "B" was cold against her finger, and she focused on that cold. It helped her not think about what she could have done last night. Could have overturned the table. Could have struck Christian back. Could have... "Don't wind yourself up," Claire's voice came from the kitchen doorway. She stood there with a mug of coffee. "I can see you clenching your jaw. It won't help." "I'm not clenching." "You're lying." Claire handed her the mug. "Drink. And try to relax. At least for an hour. You're all on edge." Jenny took the coffee. It was bitter, over-roasted, but hot. She drank in small sips, listening to the apartment wake up. Max was tossing on an air mattress in the corner. Lisa sat cross-legged on the floor, scratching something in her sketchbook. Arthur stood by the window, staring out at the street—or rather, through it. Sasha was cleaning her pistol, its parts laid out on the kitchen table. "You can't sit here all day," Claire said. "It'll kill you faster than the Maestro." "We don't have a plan," Arthur said without turning around. "You do have a plan. Isabelle is coming today. She'll tell you about the theater. Until then—you just wait." "We don't know how to wait." "Learn." Claire drained her coffee and set the mug in the sink. "There's a place. An old bowling alley on the South Side. Cheap, noisy, no one cares about teenagers there. Go. Blow off some steam." "Bowling?" Max sat up on the mattress, squinting. "Are you serious?" "Absolutely. You look like corpses that forgot to lie down. Go, throw some balls, yell a little. Isabelle won't be here until evening." Arthur turned from the window. His face was gray with exhaustion. "Maybe she's right," Jenny said. "We can't just sit here and stare at the walls. It doesn't help." "And bowling does?" "Bowling is normal. And we need something normal. Otherwise we'll break before we even reach the theater." October 14, 1986. Chicago. South Side Bowling Club. Day. The bowling alley smelled of lane wax, stale beer, and fried onions. It wasn't the kind of bowling alley families visited on weekends. It was a basement hall with six lanes, peeling walls, cracked plastic seats, and neon signs with half their letters burned out. The jukebox in the corner was playing "Eye of the Tiger"—for the third time that hour—and no one complained. There were few patrons: a couple of elderly men on the first lane, a group of students on the third, and them. Lisa picked up a ball first. It was too heavy for her—blue, with a "9" on it—and she held it with both hands, pressing it to her chest. "You're not going to throw it like that," Max observed. His hand was bandaged, but he'd insisted on playing. "You roll the ball, you don't carry it." "I know how to play bowling." "When was the last time you played?" "Fifth grade. At Maggie Simmons's birthday party." "And?" "I dropped the ball on the instructor's foot." Max snorted—the first time in days. Lisa stepped up to the line, aimed, and threw the ball. It wobbled down the lane and knocked down three of the ten pins. "Not bad," Arthur said. "I was aiming for the left corner." "You're lying." "Yeah." They played for almost an hour. Jenny couldn't remember the last time she'd done something so pointless and enjoyable. The balls rolled, the pins fell with a dull thud, the scoreboard crackled, lighting up their points. Max was winning—he turned out to be surprisingly good—and with each throw, his face became a little less tense. Arthur threw too hard, and the balls went into the gutter. Lisa laughed at him, her laugh hoarse but real. Jenny stood by the ball rack, choosing her next one, when something changed. At first, she didn't understand what it was. The air just felt different. Thicker. And the smell—the familiar mix of wax and beer—was overlaid with something else. Sweetish. Familiar. She turned around. Lisa sat on a plastic chair by the lane, her hands pressed to her ears. Her face was white as chalk. The ball she'd been holding lay on the floor, and no one but Jenny had noticed. "Lisa." Jenny moved quickly, crouching beside her. "What happened?" "I don't know." Lisa's voice was thin, trembling. "I just... in my ears. Like someone's clapping. A lot of people. Applause." "There's no applause here." "I know. But I can hear it." She pulled her hands away from her ears, and Jenny saw it: a thin trickle of blood running from her left ear. Dark, almost black in the dim bowling alley light. "Arthur!" He was there in a second. He saw the blood and went pale. "What the..." "Not here." Jenny was already pulling Lisa up. "The bathroom. Quick." They led Lisa to the women's restroom—a small stall with chipped tiles and a cracked mirror. Lisa sat on the edge of the sink, and Jenny pressed a paper towel to her ear. The blood soaked into the paper, leaving dark stains. "It's him," Lisa said. Her voice was muffled, as if she were speaking through cotton. "The Maestro. He knows we're here. He's... reaching out." "How can he reach across the whole city?" Max asked. He stood in the doorway, blocking the entrance. "I don't know. But I heard him. Applause. And laughter. He was laughing." Jenny gripped Lisa's shoulder. The thread on her wrist grew hot—almost scalding. She could feel it: something was approaching. Not the Maestro himself—his echo. His attention. Like a spotlight slowly sweeping the city for prey and finally finding it. "We're leaving," Arthur said. "Now." "I'm fine," Lisa tried to stand, but she swayed. "I can walk." "No, you can't. Max, help." Max took Lisa's arm, and they moved toward the exit. The elderly men on the first lane watched them with indifferent eyes. The students didn't even look up. For them, nothing had happened. For them, it was just an ordinary Tuesday. Outside, the cold wind hit them. Lisa gulped the air greedily, and the blood on her ear was already drying, but Jenny could still smell that sweet scent. It wasn't coming from Lisa. It was coming from everywhere—from the asphalt, from the building walls, from the sky. Chicago was saturated with it. "He knows where we are," Lisa said as they got on the bus. "He can feel us the way we feel him." "Then why doesn't he attack?" Max asked. "Because he's waiting. Like Crowley in the mansion. Like the Void at the factory. They always wait." "For what?" Lisa wiped her ear with the back of her hand, looked at the blood. "For us to come to him." October 14, 1986. Chicago. Claire's apartment. Day. They returned to the apartment half an hour later. Claire, seeing the blood on Lisa's collar, silently pulled out a first-aid kit and began treating her ear. Lisa sat on the couch, eyes closed, breathing slowly and steadily—as Tucker had taught her. "It was a warning," Sasha said. She'd spent the morning working with maps and now spread them across the table. "Not an attack. The Maestro was just showing that he can see you." "He wants us to be afraid," Arthur added. "And he's succeeding." "Not for long." Jenny sat by the window, watching the street. Gray light fell on her face. The ring with the letter "B" was cold—she checked. "This is my fault," she said. "What?" Lisa opened her eyes. "You're all here because of me. The Fairfaxes are my family. The Maestro is their monster. If I weren't a Brooks..." "If you weren't a Brooks, we wouldn't have sealed the Void," Arthur cut in. "If you weren't a Brooks, we wouldn't know how the seals work. If you weren't a Brooks, we'd have died back in Detroit." "Arthur's right," Max said. He was sitting on the floor, rewrapping the bandage on his hand. "Your family isn't just the Fairfaxes. Your family is Martha. Your family is your grandmother. Your family is us. And what that Cecilia did—selling her soul for diamonds—that's her choice. Not yours." Jenny looked at him. He spoke simply, without grandiosity, and that's what made his words real. "Thank you," she said. "Don't mention it." He tightened the bandage and stood. "Now let's figure out how to get into the theater and not die." There was a knock at the door. Three short raps. Everyone froze. Sasha's hand went to her pistol. Claire approached the door, peered through the peephole. "It's her," Claire said. "Isabelle."