The ground floor was cavernous and smelled of the mold rising from flooded basement levels. The center was scoured clean, with sodden wads of unidentifiable muck jammed up along the walls, typical of big spaces after a serious storm surge has washed through. Too bad the Macys hadn’t tidied up more, but they were kids—and worse, orphans. No one to make them clean up their room. Freed of glass and most of their mullions, the tall windows created an open arcade along the flooded street, bright with watery reflection across the walls, shadowy among the long rows of columns cut by the diagonals of frozen escalators. So much for den security.

Seeing flickers of movement, I recoiled, bringing Hannah up short. But it was only my own image slipping by in mirror shards still clinging to facets of the pillars.

Hannah nudged me with the curve of her bow. “Keep the pace.”

I’d had it with her attitude, but this wasn’t the time for backtalk. She’d taken against me and that was that. Nothing to do but press on. At least she’d stopped calling me den rat.

Daniel led us up the first escalator we came to, past the pendant remains of giant stained-glass chandeliers. For a moment, I forgot where I was, and what I was likely headed into. I wished Rubio could see this old building, struggling to hold on to some trace of its former glory, like the city he loved. Thinking ‘Rubio’ and ‘building’ stirred up a minor brain shudder: of course I knew Yankee Stadium. I’d sailed past it many times, and now could almost remember what it looked like. I hoped Rube’s mission was working out better than mine, and that he’d be home before the weather arrived.

Surveyed from mid-escalator, the second floor looked dim and uninhabited. Still too close to surge levels for the Macys to have set up living space. Daniel passed it by. Climbing to the third, he got more cautious. He pointed out a glow behind a stripped-down stud wall at the eastern end. Slow-moving shadows slid along the further wall and I was sure I heard snatches of drunken singing, different from the din upstairs.

“No problem there,” Daniel murmured. “They’re too busy having each other.”

But he avoided the escalator to the fourth floor and took us the long way round to the fire stairs. Here and there, we came across signs of Macy use: small encampments walled off by piled-up display counters, some with the open sides forming kid-sized sleeping compartments, a mini version of the bunk-tiers at Unca Joe. Tossed bedding and scattered clothing spoke of a violent wake-up. I hadn’t liked Macys much, but nobody deserved this.