by Kim Harrison
A pale light still lingered in the sky, washing out all but the strongest stars. The steady click-click, click-click had long ago retreated to a background noise, but the feel of it vibrated through her like a massive heartbeat. They were traveling through spacious fields of cultivation, and Trisk pulled her blanket closer against the damp rising from the night-cooled earth.
A racking cough drew her attention to the shadowed end of the boxcar. Daniel had helped the boys, both between the ages of six and ten, to build a makeshift hearth on the floor of the car out of a huge glass bowl. The slat-wood box the bowl had come in was currently being burned within it, the fitful flames lighting the tired, blister-marked faces surrounding it. Hunger and cold had pushed them into becoming thieves as they searched for something to eat. That Quen might be huddled alone somewhere gnawed at her, and she played with her necklace, missing him.
The back of her head seemed to itch, and she turned to see that Kal was watching her from his far corner. Eyes narrowed, she let go of the worked gold and looked away before he mistook her glance as interest. He’d been there from almost the very moment they’d pulled themselves into the moving car, settling his pristine black slacks on a piece of cardboard to try to keep himself clean. He’d slept most of the day while the sun was high, but she figured his traditional elven sleep pattern was more about avoiding any questions she might ask rather than the opportunity to slip from a human schedule to the elves’ natural crepuscular rhythm. Pixies were the same way. Trisk couldn’t believe he’d blame Rick and the vampires, but there was enough possibility of it being true to make her keep her mouth shut. Sa’han Ulbrine could decide.
Vampires were known to be bat-shit crazy, especially the older ones, and the younger went along with them as if their word was God’s. Besides, it had been hammered into Trisk from an early age that her opinion held very little weight, even with the facts to back it up. Sa’han Ulbrine had the clout to make a difference, while her words would be dismissed as those of a crackpot.
The harsh ripping of cardboard pulled her attention back to the paper fire. Daniel was using his short lab knife to open up one of the more promising boxes. His brown trousers and soft tweed vest made him look almost frumpy compared to Kal’s sharper image, and she smiled when he pushed his glasses back up his nose and brushed his blond hair back, making room for the two boys when they clustered close to pull out the packing paper and see what was inside. A little girl with dark hair was right in the thick of it, her arm clutched around a hard plastic doll with white hair, an impossibly thin waist, and an equally impossibly big chest.
The girl watched the boys pull out the paper stuffing as if it were Christmas. But then her expression fell. “Oh no,” her high voice rose in complaint when it turned out to be another cheap decorative knickknack piece of glass.
“That’s okay, April,” Daniel said, his hand consolingly atop her head as the boys began enthusiastically dismantling the box. “It just means more paper for the fire.”
Nodding, April looked to the edge of the light where they had stacked a row of boxes to give the sickest some privacy. Behind it, someone was crying.
Uneasy, Trisk drew her long sweater coat close. Apart from her, Kal, and Daniel, all but two of the adults in the car were showing signs of the virus, and she was proud of Daniel’s bravery as he made sure those who were sick were being tended and that the kids were distracted.
The scuff of a shoe brought her attention back to Kal, and she pulled her knees to her chest, startled when he sat down beside her with a heavy sigh, casually dangling his feet out of the car.
“Do you think he told them the toxin is coming from a tomato?” he asked softly, and she looked past him to the cluster of people. One of the men was vomiting out the far side of the car, his wife standing beside him, her arm over his back as she silently wept. Daniel was doggedly trying to keep the kids distracted, but Trisk was sure their bright voices as they played with the fire were only an act so they could pretend nothing was wrong for a few hours more.
She shrugged, feeling her throat close at the pain she could do nothing to stop.
Kal scooted closer. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think any of them will be alive tomorrow.”
Trisk stared at him. The tips of her toes were almost touching him, and she fought the urge to shove him out the door. “You are unbelievable,” she said, her thoughts going to Quen and that rash she had seen but hadn’t recognized. She wished there was a way to contact him magically, and she ached to know if he had escaped or if he was lying in a field somewhere, dying.
“Why?” His eyes were on the field in evaluation. “Because I don’t worry about things I can’t control?” Kal glanced over his shoulder at the two families, then, as if satisfied, he lifted his hat a bare inch. Orchid slipped out, dropping the few feet to the car’s floor.
“This is the last of it,” Kal said as he took a leaf-wrapped ball of what looked like pollen from his front shirt pocket and handed it to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect we’d have to leave the car. I think your food stocks are halfway to Colorado by now.”
He is such a dick, Trisk thought. Worried one of the kids might come over, she inched closer to Kal to make a more certain barrier, hiding the pixy.
“I’m not your responsibility, Kal,” Orchid said, her wings slowly moving as she unfolded her provisions and began eating the soft cake. Like magic, the blue dust falling from her began to brighten. “Besides, it’s dark now. I can slip out. Do some foraging. Catch up.”
“Orchid . . .” Kal whispered, and Trisk eyed him, shocked at the depth of his worry.
Smirking, the tiny woman rose up, cutting her motion short when she remembered they weren’t alone. “Relax. The train isn’t going that fast. I can find something to eat in a cornfield.”
Without another word, she swan-dived off the platform, her wings catching the wind and zipping her out into the open field. “I should have planned for this,” Kal muttered, and Trisk wondered if he’d forgotten she was there as he chewed on his lower lip and peered out into the night, probably for a trace of pixy dust among the dark plants.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Trisk said, and Kal started.
Clearly embarrassed to have been caught unawares, he shrugged, taking his hand away from his face where he had been scrubbing his thickening bristles in worry. “She’s not used to having to think about pesticides,” he said in explanation. Moving surprisingly gracefully in the swaying car, he stood, holding the open door for balance as he waited for Orchid’s return.
Trisk frowned up at him, thinking he looked different as his eyes searched the dark for any sign of trouble. She had no doubt he’d jump from the train if Orchid showed any indication of distress, making Trisk wonder how he could care so much for the pixy and nothing for the people behind him dying.
Her hand strayed protectively to her middle. She’d said that she’d tell Kal, but not until she knew if Gally had been lying. And even then, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know. Conceiving was never easy between elves, and the idea that she and Kalamack were so genetically compatible that a one-night stand left her in a family way was . . . icky.
Holding her knees to her chest, she watched the kids feed their little bonfire. She couldn’t tell if their skin was red from the heat or a coming rash. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” she whispered, her gaze lingering on the little black-haired girl, her eyes solemn as she watched the flames from the security of her mother’s side. Four? she wondered. Five?
Kal never took his eyes off the night. “I don’t know,” he said, but what she heard was I don’t care.
Angry, she gathered herself and stood. “Excuse me,” she said coolly.
“What?” he protested as she pushed around him to go help Daniel open another box.
“What can I do?” she asked, and Daniel smiled, looking good surrounded by the kids.
“I could use a few more boxes,” he said, and the two boys darted off before she could mo
ve, their voices loud as they said they wanted the very top ones.
“Hold up,” she said as she went to get them, reaching over their heads to carefully pull down one, then another. At the edges, the parents watched, heartache and grief in their eyes, as they knew they were dying. Their blisters were obvious, the oozing pustules growing as they crept down their arms. They are not contagious, she thought, putting an arm around the smaller boy to keep him from falling in the swaying car as he made his determined way back to Daniel and dropped the box at his feet with satisfaction.
“Well, let’s see what we have,” Daniel said, and Trisk pulled the boy back, gently holding him to her and out of the way of Daniel’s knife. “More paper for the fire,” he said, and they reached in, giggles sounding and then shouts as the boys ran off, eager to play with the flames they’d been forbidden to touch until tonight.
“Why didn’t we hop a produce car?” Trisk whispered.
“Good question.” Head down, Daniel unrolled a wad of paper from around yet another piece of glass. But then a smile threatened. “April? Come and see what I found.”
From the far side of the impromptu fire, the little black-haired girl sat up from beside her mother. Absently scratching her neck, she stood, her mother’s blistered hand steadying her. The woman’s eyes were red from crying, but her voice held love as she urged her daughter to go see.
“Is it something to eat?” the little girl said, her pure voice cutting deep into Trisk. Shit, she’s got it, Trisk thought when she saw the beginnings of a rash on the little girl’s neck.
Seeing it, too, Daniel forced his smile to brighten. “No.” He knelt, a glass figure in his hand. “Better.”
April’s eyes widened. “A horse!” she exclaimed, the knickknack looking huge in her tiny fingers. Shoving her gangly plastic doll under her arm, she took it.
“Close.” Daniel shifted, giving her something to lean against so she wouldn’t fall in the swaying car. “It’s a unicorn. A magical horse that only little girls can ride.”
She beamed up at him, and Trisk’s throat tightened. It was as if all the beauty from the years she would not have was suddenly condensed in her. “Thank you, Uncle Daniel,” she said, holding it close as she gave him a hug.
Daniel’s expression froze, her thin arm wrapped around his neck. For an instant, he held her, his grief open and honest. “Go show your mom,” he rasped, and April cheerfully ran to her.
Trisk unrolled a second unicorn and dropped it back in the box. The paper was more precious. “ ‘Uncle Daniel’?” she kidded him, trying to get that awful look off his face. But behind the makeshift wall, a woman was crying softly as another unseen voice tried to convince her that they’d be in Detroit in the morning and everything would be okay. But Trisk knew nothing would help them if they had received a killing dose. There was no broad-spectrum cure for a toxin. It had to run its course. April, I’m so sorry.
“It wasn’t supposed to do this,” Daniel whispered, his motion to unwrap another figurine faltering. “I made this to prevent death, not cause it.”
A lump filled her throat as she gave him a sideways hug. “I know,” she said, turning to Kal with an evil glance. He was still standing at the door waiting for Orchid’s return. If this was his fault, she was going to strangle the man with his own intestines. “They’re going to be okay,” she lied. “I don’t think the boys have it.” She hesitated, watching them play with the fire and send their little paper balloons of trapped heat to the ceiling. “Have you told them that it was in the tomatoes?”
He shook his head. A haunted expression lurked at the back of his eyes. “I didn’t see the point,” he said, voice so low she almost missed it. “Maybe tomorrow, when we get into the city.”
She could almost hear his unspoken thought: If they’re still alive.
His frustration twisted his lips, and he kicked the box out through the open door, his arms pinwheeling. There was a crash of glass, and the kids turned. Seeing Daniel slowly sink to the floor, they went back to the fire, their bright mood broken for a moment.
“Daniel, I’m sorry,” she said as she sat beside him to tug him sideways into her, but he only shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stave off any hint of emotion.
“Do you know how they got here?” he said, head still bowed. “Into this train car?”
She shook her head. A few feet away, the boys opened the second box, throwing the glass birds it contained out the door in a mimicry of flight.
Daniel looked up, his expression desolate. “Government trucks were slated to come through their neighborhood to relocate anyone who’d had a death in the house.”
“That’s awful,” she said, and Daniel pulled one of the boxes to him, clearly needing something to do even if it was only finding more paper to burn.
“If anyone died or was clearly sick, the entire household was forced onto a truck,” he said as he wrestled the box open. “They were only allowed to take what they could fit in a suitcase, made to go to a quarantine area to die.”
She remembered the angry, numb-looking expressions at the diner as good, everyday people were faced with the awful need to find a way to bury their neighbors that was both respectful and fast. It had to be better in the big cities. It had to be. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“April’s parents were already on the pickup list because their oldest daughter had died in the hospital the day before. They didn’t want anyone to know they were still alive and maybe try to follow and find them, so they dragged their dead neighbors into their own house so everyone would assume it was them. Soon as the truck left, they jumped the train. The other couple with the boys saw them and followed along with the husband’s brother.”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “This isn’t your fault.”
“No?” he asked, then he laughed bitterly as he unwrapped a jar of hard candy, ready for the store shelves. “I killed them all, and all I can do is give them a jar of candy.”
“Daniel . . .” she pleaded, but he had turned away.
“Hey, I found something to eat!” he called out, and immediately the two boys scrambled up, taking a jar. April took another to her parents, holding it carefully between her arm and her body so she wouldn’t have to let go of the glass unicorn.
“Kal?” Daniel said, his anger barely veiled. “How about some candy?”
“I’ll have one,” he said, and Daniel threw a jar at him. Hard.
Kal caught it, taking one candy and tucking it in his shirt pocket before setting the jar aside. It was for Orchid, no doubt.
“How about you?” Daniel asked as he opened the last jar. “I know it’s not much.”
“Thanks.” Her stomach hurt, but she took one anyway, the crisp plastic crackling in a clean sound. Lemon drop, she thought as the tart flavor made her more hungry, not less.
Beside her, Daniel crunched through his and reached for another. Taking a handful, he put the top back on the jar and set it aside. Kal was still staring out into the night, and Daniel watched him, reluctantly saying, “You haven’t told him yet, have you.”
“Told him what?” she blurted, then realized she was holding her middle protectively. “Oh. No,” she said, eyes down. “How can you tell?”
Daniel smirked, sighing as he settled himself more firmly on the floor in the middle of the car. “Because he’s over there, and you’re over here. If he knew, he wouldn’t let you sit over here with us sick humans, worried that you might endanger his baby with a possible infection.”
Her eyes slid to Kal, then back to Daniel. “He doesn’t strike me as the protective kind,” she said, though his concern for Orchid was considerable.
“No? Well, no one will blame you if you don’t tell him. Ever.” He hesitated, then asked, “Why is Quen sick? I thought he was . . . like you.”
“He is,” she said, listening to the kids’ voices become more cheerful with the sugar and the prospect of no bedtime. “But humans and elves can, uh, you know.” Danie
l’s eyebrows rose, and she felt herself warm. “Before we had gene therapy, the only way to bolster our failing genetic code was to bring in different stock.”
“The chromosomes match up?” he asked incredulously, and she looked at Kal, wondering if he was listening.
“With a little help from magic.” She shifted to find a more comfortable spot. “Some say it’s indicative that we share an ancestor, but I’ve seen the math, and it’s not easy, just possible.”
Daniel ran a hand over his face in thought. “And it doesn’t create a sterile mule?”
She chuckled. “I did say there was magic involved.” Her gaze went past Daniel to April and her family bedding down for the night, both parents struggling with how to say good night knowing they might not wake up tomorrow. April was petulant, wanting a story, and Trisk could see the grief in their eyes. God, save me from such a fate.
“Quen had a human ancestor in his great-greats,” she said softly, unable to watch anymore. “He’ll be okay. Even if the tomato has condensed the toxins.” But she didn’t know for sure. No one knew anything for sure.
“It wasn’t supposed to kill anyone,” Daniel said again, making a tight fist. “It was only supposed to make you sick. That’s it. Sick.”
She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. Once we get to Detroit, we can get the word out, and we can stop it. Sa’han Ulbrine will be there. They have to believe him. We might even be able to come up with an antitoxin.”
But they both knew it was a one-in-a-million shot.
The two boys quietly tended the fire, somber as they no longer had anything to distract them from the hacking coughs of the adults. “But Mama, I’m not sleepy,” April protested. “I want to play with my magic horse.”
Trisk watched April’s mother’s grief as she tried to settle her daughter, and she wondered if Kal could love a child with black hair. “April, do you want to hear a story?” she asked suddenly, and the mother’s frightened eyes shot to her.