What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose)

by Beaumont, Delany

  Reflexively, I pull back a few steps but she says, “Stay where you are. Step closer, inside our little circle of light.”

  Immediately there’s a punishing blow against my back, someone smacking me, knocking me forward and I stumble deep into the ring, near the leaping, sputtering flames rising from the steel barrel. I know Riders are all around, running through the streets like wolves, swooping bat-like through the darkness but I can’t see them. I can only see—

  Tetch and William right next to me, kneeling on the pavement, their hands held behind their backs as if their wrists are bound.

  Their heads are downcast. They lean forward as if bowed before an altar. The altar of an idling motorcycle. Or maybe it’s just that the beam of light before them is too bright, shining into their faces with a spotlight’s glare. They look abject, passive. Traumatized prisoners of war, too beaten and cowed to do anything but meekly submit.

  I don’t want to join them. I don’t want to be on that level.

  Must not fall. Stay prepared to move. Keep struggling against them.

  Fight until you succeed. Or die.

  I wait for one of the Black Riders to step into the ring and force me to my knees beside the others. I wait, expecting another blow at any moment but I’m left unmolested. I have no idea why. Maybe there’s too much light in the circle. I’m sure none of them wants to be blinded, even for a second. And they must be confident that I can’t escape.

  I wait for Moira’s voice to fill the space with its easy, eerie projection, maybe to explain to me what’s going on or to address her followers. Surely she won’t be silent for long.

  But then I realize that there’s some commotion in the distance, a hash of voices, some of the Black Riders shouting at each other. “Touch me and I’ll rip you to pieces,” I hear and recognize the voice as Aisa’s. I’ve never heard her sound remotely as agitated. She’s completely lost her cool, her composure.

  And then Aisa, Milo and Bodie are shoved into the circle, close to me, near the fire.

  They look naked, exposed, like subterranean creatures caught by powerful lights they’ve never confronted before. Each still wears a pair of impenetrably black, face-hugging sunglasses but even with that—eyes completely obscured—the light wounds them badly. They pace around the edge of the ring of light faster and faster, paying no attention to me, circling like caged jungle cats.

  “You outnumber us now, Moira,” Aisa yells into the dark beyond the circle. “But our numbers will grow.”

  Moira’s voice floats airily above the fray. “Or dwindle. Who’s to say?”

  “You can’t hurt us, Moira. You wouldn’t dare. You’re afraid to step into this circle with us. You’re afraid to actually fight.”

  “Fight.” She laughs, a fluttery, unconcerned laugh like anything Aisa might say is hardly worth paying attention to. “Fight with what? Switchblades? Bricks and bats? Our fists and fingernails? You don’t understand your position, Aisa. How weak you are your friends are. You should have thought it through before deciding to make an attempt at independence.”

  “Two tribes, Moira. Get that through your head. We’re two tribes now.”

  “So you say, Aisa.”

  In fury, Aisa kicks over the trash barrel, turning loose a floating sea of embers. Tetch and William come suddenly to life, leap back. Aisa turns on them and gives William a brutal slap across the face, knocking him flat on his ass. Bodie’s right hand like a metal claw latches onto Tetch’s shoulder and forces her back down. For a moment I see trails of tears staining her cheeks as her face is caught in the light. She’s terrified.

  “Don’t hurt the bikes!” one of the Riders outside the circle shouts. A motorcycle is quickly hauled back from the burning trash that Aisa’s spilt.

  “What about our van?” Bodie spits out.

  I hear Aisa hiss at him, her voice low and dangerous. “Shut up about the van. We can get another van.”

  I wonder why they don’t just fight their way out of the circle. They’re still pacing, shielding their eyes. It’s like they still have some vestigial respect for Moira, like whatever authority Gideon bestowed on her still holds.

  “So, let’s divide the spoils,” Moira says, changing the subject, her tone light, unconcerned, like she’s about to do the three Riders in the circle a favor they should be grateful for—a favor that will cost her nothing. “Who’s going to get who? We need to make it fair.”

  Moira’s voice is everywhere and nowhere. I have no sense of where she is except that she must be close, not far from the circle’s rim. Her voice drifts from place to place, blown by the wind, filling the air around me, disembodied, haunting.

  Aisa says, “We’ll take the girl.” She points at me. “This girl. Gillian.”

  “Oh, no. We get that girl. You can have the other two.”

  Milo charges up to the edge of the ring, close to where Moira last seemed to be speaking. “What do we want with these other two? Aisa wants the girl. Aisa’s going to get the girl.” He’s acting like a protective boyfriend.

  For only the merest millisecond I get a glimpse of a fleeting black specter caught by the light and it has to be her. Moira. I hear her say, “Is she? Doon, will you stand up for me like Milo is standing up for Aisa?”

  There’s no reply in words but a fat clump of damp litter, waste paper and foam, flies across the boundary of the bikes and slaps Milo in the chest. It makes a sodden thunk and slides down the front of his black jacket. He stops pacing, stands alert like a cat, ready to charge after wherever Doon or whoever threw the refuse is lurking.

  Moira starts speaking faster, smoothing things over before they go too far. “Now, now. Let’s not fight in front of the children. You three know I have the advantage in numbers. At the very least I have that advantage. Why not just give in?” I hear Milo growl. “For now. Take the other two, do what you want with them and be happy. For now.”

  “What good is that going to do us?” Aisa says. “You got Jendra—”

  “Jendra,” Moira says as if an idea has just occurred to her. “Jendra, come here. Your friends want to see you. This boy, this pitiful, frightened little creature, was a good friend of yours once, wasn’t he?”

  Now I’m aware that Jendra must also be close, probably only a few feet away, but I can’t see her.

  “Not my friend now, Moira. He was.” The voice sounds like Jendra’s but altered. Enhanced. Enlarged.

  William perks up for the first time. He raises his head, strains to see beyond the glare. I think of that moon-shaped scar, the pain he’s endured. I imagine him hoping that by some miracle the friendship he had forged in the past with this girl will save him. Even though she seems more than willing to deny him.

  “Should I let Aisa keep him or take him with us? Let me know, Jendra. This is interesting.”

  If Jendra replies to Moira, I can’t hear what she says.

  “Come here, boy,” Moira calls to William, cooing, happy to be able to exploit the moment. “Come to the edge of the circle. Into this pool of light. Let us all see you.”

  William rises to his feet slowly, hunched and frightened, looking all around as if expecting to be struck down again at any moment. He edges his way timidly to the rim of this crude circle the sputtering, thrumming bikes have formed.

  I get a good look at William’s face. Despite everything there’s something hopeful in it. Jendra. The promise of reuniting with her is leading him on.

  Staring at William, at how weak he seems compared to Milo or Bodie, I wonder—is he capable of becoming as they are? Is he really one day going to disappear into the night with the other Black Riders?

  Then Jendra, or what I’m assuming is her, meets him in the radiant cone of a headlight’s beam. She’s a dark shape hovering. She seems taller than he is, bigger but also shadowy. Hard to get a fix on. She darts in and out of the light like it’s a spray of ice cold water.

  I hear William’s voice, so very tiny in the echoing darkness. The whoops and cries of the Black Ri
ders have died away. Even Milo, Bodie and Aisa appear very interested in what’s about to happen. “Jendra? Can I—can I see you?”

  “Here.” He looks all around but can’t make her out. “Here. Look!” She springs into the light again for just seconds and vanishes. She sounds irritated, unhappy, as if being pulled from her adult world back into the childish world of the Elders she left behind is painful to her. “That’s all. I don’t want him looking at me!”

  But then two figures become just barely visible at the periphery of the headlight’s gleam. Moira appears to have her hand on Jendra’s shoulder, keeping her still for a moment, keeping her close to William. The three Black Riders from the opposing tribe near me tense up, draw together, hovering, waiting to strike. I’m spellbound by what’s happening, wondering if they will risk attacking Moira. Moira must believe that they won’t.

  “Be gentle, Jen,” I hear Moira say. “You were friends.”

  William appears torn between his fear of Moira and a fierce desire to finally be close to Jendra again. He’s trembling visibly, begins stuttering. “M-m-make me like you, Jendra. I want to be like you.” His voice is so meek, so submissive and small.

  There is laughter. Even Aisa laughs.

  “No, no,” Moira says. “This is important. Do you remember what Gideon told us once, long ago, about the ceremony of blood?”

  There is murmuring. The laughter dies away completely. Aisa and her crew now seem too caught up in what’s happening to lash out at Moira physically. At least until they’ve let her have her say.

  “You all know what I’m talking about. What some used to do in the days before all the old ones died. The mixing of blood. When two people who loved each other and wanted to join each other on the other side, tried to hurry things along, mixing the blood of the sick one with the blood of the one who was still healthy.”

  “Healthy,” Aisa snarls at her. “They weren’t healthy.”

  “You’re right. Let us say, unchanged. How about it, Jendra? Is there anything left of your feelings for this boy that might make you want to help him along, maybe speed up the change so you can be together again?”

  “Jendra?”

  William’s voice breaks into a sob, a sound of pure agony. I expect more laughter but there is none. It can’t be compassion. It has to be curiosity that keeps them hushed, the desire to absorb every word, every moment of what’s about to happen. I’m sure Jendra is trying to figure out what Moira wants her to do. She has little interest in William but a lot of interest in pleasing the leader of her tribe.

  “What do I have to do?” Jendra asks.

  “Just agree to the ceremony, Jendra, and you’ll see. Do you agree little man? You could become like she is. Or you could die. It’s your choice.”

  “All right.” That’s all William says with his meek little voice, barely audible over the sound of the engines. He takes a few quick steps back, retreats.

  “What’s that? We can’t hear you.”

  William edges up to the rim of the circle again. He looks like he’s about to collapse. It must be taking every ounce of strength he possesses to face Moira like this, to speak to her directly. He must want to be reunited with Jendra badly. But I can understand—he has no one else.

  “I will.” His voice is louder—fragile, quavering—but it’s sufficient to satisfy Moira.

  “It’s a date then.”

  As quickly as it started, the interest this exchange has held for the Riders fades. I can sense them start to move with anxious energy, predators in the darkness, the sounds—whoops, screams, hollers—they make scarcely human.

  I watch Aisa, Bodie and Milo face each other for a moment. Their eyes are hidden of course—I can’t even see their faces clearly—but I know they’re trying to regroup, decide what to do. As one, they exchange the slightest of nods, reaching a decision without saying a word. But all they do is start pacing round and round again.

  William is still where he was, standing by the circle’s edge. When Aisa finds him in her way, she simply whacks him aside with the hard edge of her forearm. William sprawls into the middle of the burning trash. He tries to scramble back up but maybe his hands are hurt—scraped, burned. He can’t push himself up all the way and keeps sliding back on the embers. I find myself moving toward him instinctively, unable to see him suffer, but Milo blocks me, a cruel smile on his ghost-pale face. He shakes his head. I can’t interfere.

  There is hyena-high, lunatic laughter in the darkness, shapes whirling at the edge of the light. Movement, mounting excitement and noise. The party is breaking up but the core issue of who gets who has not been resolved.

  She must feel like she’s losing control of the situation because when I hear her again, Moira is speaking in a booming, expansive voice, as if she’s stepped back from the circle, thrown her arms wide and is trying to project to the farthest balcony of a theater. It occurs to me that it’s a pity she could never stand the glare of a spotlight.

  “Listen to me! We’ve put up with this plague, this infestation of stupidity, this contagion of idiocy, for far too long. Dealing with these creatures, these Elders…” Her voice is curdled with contempt. “Maybe we should hurry all the Elders along. And the younger ones, too. If some die, they die. But we’ll finally know which of them are destined to survive the change and which of them are just a useless waste of resources.”

  There’s more excited monkey-chatter from all around her. I wish I knew how many of them were out there. Their numbers could be enormous by the commotion they’re making.

  “Blood!” Moira screams out. The word smashes against my ears with horrible volume, unbearably high, ratcheting up to a frequency only a dog could hear. “Ceremonies of blood for all that remain. Any that live through it will be part of us. Part of a single tribe.”

  Her words electrify the night.

  Blood. Blood.

  The word is repeated everywhere that I can’t see, echoing between buildings that surround us, pulsing through the damp streets like a siren’s wail.

  Blood. They want blood. I can feel any number of them out there, ready to swoop down. My adrenaline kicks in again. Panic. My thoughts slow to the simplest. Must get away. Or die trying.

  Aisa speaks up at last. “So, now you’re going to take the boy,” she says. “For Jendra. Take him, but let us hold onto the girl.” So that I’m not confused with Tetch who is huddling on the ground with William in abject terror, she points at me, arm outstretched, index finger only inches from my face. “This girl.”

  “I think we’ll simply take all of them. Come to think of it, there are no spoils here to divvy up.”

  “We are taking the girl. The one you want, Moira.”

  Then like lightning, without any forewarning, someone grabs me from behind.

  I feel an arm snake around my neck, jerk me back tight. It’s not Aisa or Milo or Bodie. I can see all of them in front of me and they must be as surprised by what’s happening as I am because they all jump back, then hunker down defensively.

  There is cold breath against the side of my face. A smell, a coppery, overpowering smell like burning wires. I try to pull away but she holds me tight. I know who it is—who it can only be. Moira. She’s not waiting for Doon or another follower to obey an order but is taking me herself, claiming me. Will now do whatever she wants with me.

  Ice cold breath. Her face, her body so near me—I have that same sinking sensation like when she touched me once before, back in the Orphanage, in the dorm that night. It’s like I’m being submerged even though there’s no skin touching skin this time. She wears a damp vinyl coat, not thick but slick and rimy, her hands in gloves like the others.

  Maybe her breath alone is poison. I start to feel like I’m floating out over a void, a skein of webbing spider-thin all that holds me aloft. I know I’m about to drop and, when I do, I will fall straight inside Moira’s mind, deep down into her soul.

  I can sense other Riders from beyond the circle pressing in closer. Aisa, Bodie a
nd Milo have turned from me and have backed toward each other, now facing out in three directions, ready to move, to lash out.

  Only seconds remain—a tiny sliver of time while I still have the ability to act. Seconds before I lose control. Am completely Moira’s.

  I can still breathe. She hasn’t cut off my airway.

  My hands are free. Barely any time has passed since she grabbed me and I haven’t tried to pull her arms away. I haven’t struggled. Maybe that’s why she’s not trying to choke me.

  Without thinking it out in any deliberate, conscious way—only acting, only reacting—I reach up with my right hand and shove back the sleeve of her jacket and that of some sweater she wears underneath, exposing the ash-gray, sick-looking flesh of her arm. Maybe it’s the blue-white light from the headlamps but her skin looks dead to me.

  I’m fast, faster than she is this time. I wrench my head down and sink my teeth deep into that flesh, that dead-white sickly flesh. I chomp into it as if it’s the most succulent piece of meat I’ve ever seen. Like I’m starving and this is the only thing that will sustain me.

  I want to hurt her. I want to hurt her badly.

  I keep my teeth locked deep until it hits me. It hits me like I’ve tried to bite a fallen power line hot with current in two. My jaws snap open. Blinding shock sends me reeling, flailing back into Moira. I hear her scream, close to my ear, a sound that might tear my ears to shreds but I’m so full of jagged waves of hot white voltage that it sounds muffled, distant.

  Then there’s a sudden break. A moment of…nothing.

  It’s like Aisa’s shoved me out of a window again and I’ve fallen, blacked out. I come to this time and find myself still on my feet but shaking violently, unsure what’s just happened, another fragment of time missing from my memory.

  It’s like the first moments after a horrible car crash. Shock, displacement. Disarrangement of my senses.

  And I realize it’s abruptly grown quiet, only the continuing throb of the engines filling the night. I turn and Moira’s not behind me. No one is behind me. Only headlight beams.