Page 45 of Chaos and Crowns

“I’ll help you up first, and then jump up after you,” he explained as Odelle gingerly plucked the reins from his hands.

“Are you sure? I don’t think he likes me very much,” Odelle pointed out.

Indeed, as soon as Odelle took the reins, the animal snorted and stamped the pavement again.

“It’ll be fine,” Antony assured. Before Odelle had a chance to think better of it, he grabbed her by the waist and launched her up into the saddle with a strength she hadn’t known he possessed.

Odelle flopped across the horse’s back in her best impression of a beached whale, the pommel catching her in the stomach and knocking the wind from her lungs. She struggled to swing one leg over, cursing as her tight dress rode up practically to her waist. Pencil skirts were not designed for horseback adventures, but like Hell she was going for this ride side saddle. She was stealing a police horse. What more harm would it do if the city saw her underwear in the process?

The horse seemed to have protests of its own, letting out a high nicker and pulling its ears flat against its head as Odelle squirmed on its back. The police officer’s head snapped up at the noise, but it was too late. Antony swung himself into the saddle behind Odelle in a much more elegant fashion and kicked the animal into motion. Despite its clear dislike of Odelle, the horse responded to Antony’s direction, taking off down the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians like bowling pins in its path.

“Sorry!” Antony shouted at the police officer as they cantered past, an impeccably polite thief.

Odelle would have tumbled off if not for Antony’s arms tight around her waist and the way her pelvis wedged against his in a saddle clearly meant for one person. Somehow, fragrance commercials always made horseback rides seem romantic, but Odelle’s experience was turning out to be more hectic than anything else. Maybe it had something to do with commercials showing slow motion gallops on the beach. Currently, Antony maneuvered the horse between stopped cars at a lurching trot, shouting directly in Odelle’s ear for pedestrians to get out of the way. Cars horns drowned out the sharp clop of hooves as they wove in and out of gridlocked traffic, jumping up onto the sidewalk in places where the street was too densely packed.

Odelle bounced in the saddle as elegantly as a sack of potatoes, bare thighs already chaffing against the rough leather and the wind sticking her hair to her lip gloss. She did her best to direct Antony towards their destination with a combination of yelling and pointing, whenever she could persuade herself to release her death grip on the pommel. As her hands slipped, she focused on resisting the urge to abandon the slick leather for a more secure grip on the horse’s mane. It already seemed to barely tolerate her; no need to antagonize the animal by ripping out chunks of hair.

Antony, on the other hand, clearly wasn’t lying about having done this before, urging the horse to jump over a traffic barrier and clutching Odelle to his chest as it complied, like he was a stuntman in an action film. She wished she could watch Antony playing the part of dramatic equestrian hero from the ground at a time when the safety of the city wasn’t hanging in the balance.

It wasn’t long before Antony pulled them to a halt at the base of the Sears Tower. They arrived much faster than they would have on foot, especially with the current pandemonium, although it had come at the cost of Odelle’s dignity. He dismounted and held out his arms. Odelle slithered down after him, lucky he was there to catch her, or she might have ended up on her ass.

As she yanked her dress back down over the top of her thighs, the horse affectionately head-butted Antony in the shoulder. He patted the majestic beast on the nose and murmured once more in Greek, clearly having bonded with the animal in the last five minutes. Still, when Odelle grabbed his arm to haul him into the building, the horse snorted at her unhappily, clearly not extending whatever good will it had for Antony.

The couple tumbled through the revolving doors into a lobby only marginally less chaotic than the street outside. Men in florescent orange vests milled about, arguing with each other.

“The readings are coming back normal. The problem isn’t on our end!”

“Every single signal that’s routed through those antennas is down. Explain that without something being wrong with them.”

“My boys have checked them out and insist they don’t see anything wrong.”

“So it is a cyber-attack!”

Odelle spotted the elevators at the far end of the lobby. The line of tourists normally congregated to visit the top floor was notably absent, most likely scattered by the horde of maintenance workers. A teenager in a blue vest still sat at the ticket booth but had turned around in his chair to watch the arguing workers.

“Just walk like you belong here,” Odelle instructed Antony, lifting her chin and striding across the lobby. They managed to weave their way across the room unhindered, probably thanks to what Nora would call Odelle’s “reporter energy.” The lobby was crowded enough that Odelle had to squeeze through a dense knot of workers, hand brushing over the back of one’s vest as she passed.

“Excuse me,” she said with a polite smile. The maintenance worker spared her only a quick glance and a nod before turning back to his heated debate, just as Odelle had hoped.

Thankfully, an elevator door slid open as soon as Odelle pressed the call button. At the polite ding, the teenager at the ticket counter turned around, but Odelle tugged Antony into the elevator.

“Hey!” he yelled, but Odelle was already mashing the door close button and the button for the top floor. They would have to gain access to the roof from there, but Odelle had a plan for that.

As the elevator lurched upwards, Antony grabbed Odelle’s shoulder unsteadily.

“Chicago elevators go fast,” she sympathized, even as her own ears began to pop.

“It’s not just that.” Antony looked around him dubiously. “I’m not sure putting ourselves into a metal box hurtling into the sky is a good idea when the Shadow is after us.”

“Climbing a hundred flights of stairs would take way too long,” Odelle reasoned, even as she realized that Antony had a point. “Besides, the Shadow is probably having too much fun exploiting chaos and disrupting news signals to tamper with the elevators.”

She nearly toppled over as the elevator jerked to a sudden stop and the light flickered out, plunging them into pitch blackness.

“You were saying?” came Antony’s voice from the darkness.

Odelle fished her phone out of her pocket, swiping at the screen and turning on her flashlight. She shined it around Antony, the light casting long shadows on his face, making his high cheekbones look even sharper than usual.

“Now what?” he asked.