Daugher of Ash

by Matthew S. Cox

  She held her hands up, clawing them into fists. They did this to me. The surge of anger faded; her arms fell to her sides as she shot a baleful glance into the creaking corpse of old St. Louis up ahead. Metal girders groaned, plastic and wood clattered in the wind, and skitters of life came from the shadows.

  If Archon can’t fix me, I’ll burn the entire corporation… down to the last janitor.

  ld St. Louis seemed deserted. Kate wandered west along an elevated road connected to the bridge. The cloudless sky overlooked a day devoid of wind; the world had yet to wake. Long, crawling shadows stretched from behind her, cast by a sun reluctant to leave its bed in the east. Aside from the sporadic sizzle of unidentifiable muck underfoot, she existed in silence. Her gaze wandered over bullet gouges in the pavement, metal fragments, bottles, and more than a few bloody drag marks. She looked out over a rusted guardrail, at a distant structure that gave her pause. Inside a thick wall shaped like a triangle with a rounded bottom, an odd pattern of brown dirt, reminiscent of a Japanese fan, marked one corner of a grassy field. Bodies, most dismembered, littered the green, as did the husks of old cars. The more distant section had targets set up where a number of figures in grey-on-white camouflage milled about. Most of the space within the thick perimeter wall held seats, suggesting it had been an auditorium or theater of some kind before the war.

  Why are they keeping that grass so neat?

  She lost interest, swinging her stare to the left at massive open lots on the other side of the highway. The spaces gave way to bizarre paths made of metal rails and littered with vehicles that resembled cargo transports without a cab. Many had been repurposed as dwellings. Kate felt the presence of eyes upon her. Amid the dark spaces lurked a mixture of rifle-bearing adults and pistol-toting children, most of whom wore only dirt.

  A boy not yet twelve, pale and brown-haired, sat in the doorway of one of the wheeled boxes, swinging his feet. He might have had fur or leather shorts, or merely a cat curled in his lap. Sunlight glinted from a silver handgun he almost aimed at her. He seemed hesitant and looked up at an old man. His lips moved, but he was too far away to hear, though the question and its answer rang aloud in his thoughts.

  Can I shoot ‘er gan-paw?

  Naw, Boy. She’s one of us. Save yer ammo for the bad ones.

  Kate pushed deeper into the child’s mind. The boy wasn’t used to seeing white people outside their group, and really wanted to get a chance to shoot one of the ‘bad ones’―people with darker skin. Grandpa told him all about how they had lost ‘the blood war,’ and there weren’t many of ‘us’ left. He had no clue East City―and modern society―existed… he thought the Badlands went on forever.

  She shook her head in disgust. Both of them would lose their respective shit in a city of millions where ninety-something percent of the population had brown skin.

  The boy pointed at her. We gon’ go catch ‘er den? She make a good breeder.

  A’ats a thought. The old man lifted his rifle, using the scope to check her out.

  Kate created an azure fireball over her right hand and sent her thoughts into the old man’s mind. I see so much as a single inbred shithead following me, I’ll burn every last one of you to ash.

  The old man fell backward off his seat and the boy scrambled inside to see what had happened to him. She let the fireball whiff out and walked faster. Feeling such hate inside the mind of a boy made her contempt for the world grow stronger. She clenched her hands into fists, fuming at how people could pervert the innocence of a child into blind animosity, and debated if it would be a kindness to kill him now. The idea of people hating others didn’t strike her as new. Being scorned for her psionic talents at least made some sense. She had the ability do things others couldn’t. Fear and jealousy, she could understand. Hating someone for not having pale skin seemed so beyond stupid she pondered burning them out for the hell of it. Even middle-class citizens could afford something as minor as a color shift at Reinventions. It struck her as ridiculous as if they hated a person because they wore the wrong color shirt.

  Many parallel rows of the same odd metal rails filled the area to her left for quite some distance. Her occasional glance caught women, children, and elders hiding inside the wheeled boxes, watching. She figured them for some kind of ancient cargo transport, but couldn’t explain how they moved. The simple containers mounted on wheels had no apparent source of power.

  Soon, people emerged here and there. Men edged out of doorways, children appeared on the rooftops, struggling to get away from the women trying to keep them inside. Perhaps one in six had clothing beyond a loincloth if that―yet anyone who looked older than about twelve had a firearm. The locals’ thoughts gave away the speed with which word traveled among their kind. They all wanted to see the ‘demon’ for themselves.

  Great, religious wingnuts too. Kate grinned to herself, and locked eyes with a woman who seemed in her early fifties.

  Hello. Kate forced her thoughts into the woman’s head. Pauline…

  The woman grabbed her head and shrieked, “Out of my head, devil!”

  You know why I’ve come? The woman looked up, shaking her head. Your god has turned his back on you for the sin of hatred. Kate created fire in the air behind her; serpents of low-intensity orange flame circled her. Your prayers have held me back, for now, but he is very disappointed in you. He gives you another chance. Discard your murderous ways and remember his word, or I shall return bearing the fires of wrath. As an exclamation point, she lobbed a fireball into the dwelling, aiming for a patch of metal that wouldn’t ignite. A brief blast of heat and light scared screams out of a handful of idiots.

  The woman shouted and wailed at the others, her ramblings indecipherable from the distance.

  Kate turned away before her stern expression cracked to mad laughter. It’s too easy to mess with those people. The elevated road continued past more large buildings and open lots, and nearly an hour later, she passed by a residential area to the south. Gunshots and shouts tinged with anger emanated from within the old buildings. She debated if anything similar to a divine being existed, and if so, would it be upset with her for impersonating a demon? She glanced over her shoulder at empty road. Thus far, no ‘hunting party’ had shown itself in pursuit of her.

  Maybe they aren’t all that stupid, or at least they have some sense of self-preservation.

  The land on either side of the road turned lush a while later, a battered sign referred to it as the Highlands. Trees whispered in a light breeze, the thick, dark green of the woods broken up a handful of small ponds, which caught the sun. Kate scowled. Her initial sadness at her inability to swim spiraled into dwelling on her curse.

  What does it feel like to touch water?

  Sorrow became anger. The memory of Esteban’s burned lip flashed by.

  Everything I touch, I destroy.

  The next few hours passed in a blur of aimless rage. Land on either side of the decaying roadway became greener as nature reclaimed what had once been suburbs. A slab of scrap metal on the road shifted under her weight, spilling her onto all fours. She rolled around to sit, cradling a skinned knee. The wind picked up, carrying a tattered doll out from under a crashed car. The blonde, blue-eyed plastic toy came skittering over the roadway toward her.

  Kate frowned at it. Its presence mocked the childhood she never had. Whatever little girl had once cared for it had been gone for centuries. The innocent look on its face didn’t stop the fireball. She glared at the deforming cherub as the eyes blackened and the round cheeks developed expanding holes before it melted into a beige puddle.

  For some minutes, she scowled at the mess, unable to figure out why she felt guilty about destroying a hunk of plastic. Her imagination said the toy had come to her on its own, as if it wanted a new mommy. The wind went still, taking all the ambient sounds of wildlife with it. The silence left her mind meandering to the conclusion something wanted her to see the doll. She had found innocence and destroyed it out of spite.
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  “What was that for?” she shouted. When no answer came, she stood and got louder. “Why? To remind me I can’t touch it?”

  Smoke peeled from the solidifying mass. Kate looked up, stepping past it, shouting at nothing as she walked.

  “What did that mean? Innocence? It’s a piece of plastic!” She held her face in both hands, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t feel sorry for plastic.”

  She received no reply.

  Her fingers slid over her mouth as her arms fell slack. “I was innocent too.”

  The memory of betrayal, those men she thought wanted to take care of her becoming murderous, brought tears. She closed her eyes and watched the gel tank exploding all over again. Kate focused on Archon’s holographic face, clinging to the hope that he could cure her.

  With that thought in mind, she walked to the west until the sun set.

  Kate shivered awake, cursed, and sat up. It had been days since she had seen another person. At night, she left the bracelet off both to conserve power and because the glow could attract danger. Holographic clothing did nothing to keep her warm, so leaving it on would only waste battery power. She crawled through the brush, calmed by the fragrance of burned leaves and grass. Leaves and branches caressing her body reminded her of her years growing up, a child of nature.

  A short distance from where she’d slept, she squatted by the remnants of a deer she killed earlier. Her hands seared its flesh, tearing and cooking the meat at the same time. She ate with a feral savagery absent since she had first wandered to the great city. Loneliness, a desire for human contact, had made her leave the forest. Had she known then that the city offered only worse isolation, she would not have gone. Being alone out here didn’t carry the same sense of emptiness as being alone in a city of millions.

  It was easier to be alone without people around.

  As much as solitude hurt, nature offered a certain degree of peace. Kate moved back to the dirt mound she had made for a bed and drifted off to a dream about a time before technology.

  She woke again an hour later, teeth chattering. No sooner did her brain engage true sleep than her continuous heat faded, leaving her as cold as an ordinary person curled up naked on the ground in the woods. The dead deer’s lifeless eyes gazed at her, black save for a speck of reflected moonlight. One hand traced circles on her stomach, remembering how hungry she had been before killing one for the first time. Seven-year-old Kate cried over the first animal she hunted. Unlike them, it had not wanted to hurt her.

  Kate couldn’t recall the exact moment when she stopped feeling guilt over killing them. Perhaps around the time she learned how to make the fireball hot enough to kill it instantly, and they no longer screamed.

  “Sorry for killing you. Thank you for giving your life to prolong mine.”

  She wasn’t sure why she started saying that. Vague memories of a man drifted out of her childhood, someone who had spent weeks trying to coax her out of the woods. She had fleeting images of sitting by a campfire, listening to him talk about spirits and the Earth. It could not have been long after her escape, months at most. As hard as she thought, she couldn’t recall what had happened to him.

  I probably killed him by accident.

  Kate snuggled into the dirt and closed her eyes.

  “Ironic,” said an elderly voice.

  She shot upright, fumbling at the bracelet.

  “There is no need to be embarrassed.” A skeleton wrapped in skin, and the black uniform of a priest, emerged from the trees. “You are like a daughter, Kate.”

  The device ignored her frantic swatting. She scooted back, overcome by an inexplicable fear for her life. Modesty took a back seat to survival; she leapt to her feet and summoned a fireball.

  “Who are you? What’s ironic?”

  “You are happier here among the wilds than among the trappings of ‘modern’ society. For so many years, you denied your nature.” Dark venous lines shifted in his cheeks as fragile skin stretched into a smile, baring kelp-colored teeth.

  The more she looked at him, the more frightened she became.

  Kate flung the fireball into his chest. Blue flames wrapped around his body, lingered for an instant, and seemed to draw into him with a rush of air. No scent of burned fabric or flesh tainted the fragrance of early morning vegetation.

  “Your anger is beautiful.”

  What little color Kate had in her face drained away. “W-who… W-what are you?”

  He folded his hands behind his back. “You asked what was ironic. The man you remembered. Alas, you did not kill him. He died trying to lure bandits away from what he believed to be a helpless child.”

  “Ironic because I could’ve saved his life if he led them to me.” Kate put her hands on her hips.

  The old priest tipped his head. “Indeed.”

  “How do you know that? What do you want from me, and why the hell should I believe anything you say?”

  He buttoned his black coat, hiding his unburned white shirt. “I know many things. Such as why the only hair on your body is on your head.”

  She fumed, too angry to feel embarrassed.

  The priest closed his eyes as if savoring a delicate aroma. “It is part vanity, part early experience. When you first saw yourself, reflected in the wall of your tank…”

  “I was too little to have body hair.”

  “Very good, Kate. Your inner mind sees yourself like that still.” He touched two fingers to his temple. The liver-spotted skin on the back of his hand folded thick with wrinkles. “Subconsciously, you don’t burn away the hair you think you should have.”

  She blushed. “What the hell do you want?”

  “I know what it is that you desire more than anything. For years, I watched you grow, nursing your anger. Every time raiders found you, their elation became despair.” The priest gestured, simulating a conflagration of flames with opening fingers. “Whoosh, and men died. I tried to call you home, but you went east.”

  “Are you the ‘he’ Wilma was talking about?” She swallowed. “Are you God?”

  The priest hissed into a laugh that leaked saliva over his chin. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

  “Tell me.” Kate advanced, her nose hovered inches from his chin. “Is it true? Can Archon get rid of this curse?”

  Foul corpse-breath reached into her nostrils and tried to drag her meal back out. She re-swallowed.

  He glanced down at her with an impressed frown. One finger tapped at the corner of his mouth. “No. He cannot. All he wants is to use you as a worm.”

  Kate blinked.

  “Oh, forgive me. I expected you to comprehend a fishing metaphor. He seeks to use you as bait.” Red light glinted in his eyes.

  She didn’t back down. “Bait for what? He lied?”

  The priest broke eye contact, wandering in a circle while waving his hand about. “Archon is relying on an unlikely sequence of events transpiring that… in a distant way might result in the outcome you desire.”

  “Might?” She crossed her arms and pouted at her feet. “I…”

  “Don’t wish to continue living?” The priest winked at her.

  Kate shied away, unable to figure out why she feared a man who seemed frail to the point of dropping dead at any moment.

  “Archon wishes to make use of your situation. He believes your need could convince a child to return to the city and join his cause―a child who is not a child, but a being that already refused him once, and will again. While I would not mind it leaving my domain, I would prefer it handled another way.”

  She looked up. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “If it meant freedom from your so-called curse, could you kill something that looked like a child?”

  “A blue-eyed blonde,” whispered Kate.

  “It only appears to be a little girl, but it is not,” said the old man.

  Like a doll.

  “It does not belong in this place. It upsets the balance while preying on the pity of fools
.”

  She shifted her weight. “A demon?”

  He grinned again. “Six of one…”

  “Yeah. Okay, but you said Archon wants this kid too. If I kill her, won’t that piss Archon off? Then he won’t cure me.”

  “Forget Archon.” The priest moved up to her in a blur of black and white. Threads of cobweb hair wavered in the wind. “You belong here. This is as much your domain as it is ours.”

  Kate did not have time to jump away from his sudden motion and gasped when he put his hand on her shoulder. She stared, waiting for the smoke and screaming, but none came. His touch, coarse and calloused, slid to the side of her neck.

  “You have every right to be angry at them for what they did to you.” He pulled her into a paternal embrace. Rough hands caressed her back. “You do not need Archon to be free, Kate. Accept your destiny, destroy the abomination masquerading as a child, and I shall bestow your wish.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, adoring the sense of contact with a warm body, and let her cheek rest on his shoulder. Bones shifted under cloth as she squeezed him, gazing into the distant west.

  All of a sudden, she found herself seven years old again, clinging to him.

  “There, there, Kate.” His hand patted the back of her head. “Your rage is justified.”

  An involuntary nod came with a sinister smile. Hate for a child she’d never seen before swarmed through her veins.

  The whole world deserved to burn, and she would deliver it into the inferno.

  n the delirium of near-sleep, Kate forgot she had crawled into a culvert beneath a road. The two-day old memory of meeting the strange priest felt like only hours had passed. Her attempt to sit up smacked her head into the top of the corrugated metal pipe. She fell, curled in a ball, and moaned for a moment before shaking off the pain and dizziness. A small motor buzzed overhead, conjuring the image of an enormous mosquito. It sounded like one of the raider buggies that attacked the caravan, a vehicle consisting of a rickety combustion engine mounted to a hollow aluminum frame. The fragrance of ethanol washed over her, bringing with it a memory of Esteban.