What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose)

by Beaumont, Delany

  I look up past where the tails of Moira’s coat are snapping around the tops of her leather boots, up to her arrogant smile, watch as she pulls back her sleeve once more and displays to me her wrist. A wrist with a set of indigo indentations sunk deep into her blue-white skin that retain the pattern of my teeth. “Payback time, Gilly.”

  I hadn’t noticed her hands before but they are uncovered, exposed. I can see the lavender half-moons of her fingernails, longer, sharper than Needle’s. She takes a pair of black kid gloves from her pocket, draws them on slowly just as Aisa had done in Needle’s room. It’s theater, drama—another part of the performance. We’re still not at the end of the show.

  Without warning, she snatches her arm back and slaps my face, hard. I might have had a chance to put my hands up, to try to deflect the blow but Emily’s clutching fingers are laced through mine and I can’t pull away. I let Moira hit me as hard as she can—as hard as she wants to—sending me sprawling back onto the snow, punching through its frozen surface.

  She’s staring at me, clenching her black-gloved fists. My mouth stings at first but has no feeling when I touch it—moving a finger across my cheek, my lower lip—and my hand comes away stained with my own blood this time, my blood mixed with Emily’s.

  The slap is an invitation to fight. Moira and me. No weapons allowed—no time to prepare. Nothing to give me an advantage.

  I can feel the other Riders pressing in close again. I don’t even have to look to know how close they are. I can smell them even with the wind grinding into my face, can feel their presence setting my nerves on fire like a thousand small needles are pricking at every inch of my skin.

  This time she will kill me. Nothing can stop her.

  But I can’t give up.

  And I won’t leave Emily.

  I get on my hands and knees, hands instantly numbed by the snow. I crawl back to Emily and feel for her wound again, the slick spot on her side. I carve out a handful of snow and press it against the spot, trying to hold Emily’s squirming hands back. Maybe the snow will dull the pain. Maybe the bleeding will stop.

  But Moira gives me a sharp kick in the ribs. Knocks me back on the ground, sprawled away from Emily. Before I can move the tip of her boot is under my chin.

  “You will fight, warrior girl. On your feet now—you have no choice.” She is hissing, snarling, a feral cat with a lust to taunt, to destroy. “You should feel honored that I’m giving you a chance to go out in style.”

  She draws the tip of her boot away, waits for me to try to get up.

  “Surely you, Gillian Rose, are not going to roll over and simply die. You think you’re something special—the one Elder who has ever, ever thought they could take us on. I want to see how special you really are.”

  She kicks me again, not as hard. Not wanting to hurt me badly. She wants me on my feet before she delivers the fatal blow. “Come on now. I’m tired of waiting.”

  I’m back on my hands and knees. I sit up, one knee raised, the palms of my frozen hands flat against the snow. Before making another move, I start to speak, try to raise my voice high enough so all of them surrounding me can hear.

  “You can’t just kill me, can you Moira?” My voice cracks, struggles against the wind. “That wouldn’t look good in front of your tribe. I have to fight like a worthy opponent. It can’t look like you’re just picking on weaklings. Like William and Emily.”

  Moira laughs, a rich reverberating laugh that fills the midway. “Mind games, Gillian. You’re trying to undermine my authority. Very clever.” She reaches down, grabs the front of my parka and hauls me to my feet. “But—you—will—do—what—I—say.”

  Her voice is brimming with hate, with a howling rage louder than the wind. Each syllable strikes deep in my ears like a shaft of pure electric current. I look into her face—charcoal eyebrows painted into peaks above hidden eyes. Alabaster skin, mouth scrunched tight like a plum-purple scar. A sharp nose, high cheekbones—bones that are regal and austere.

  Her breath is an icy chill in my face, filling my nose with that coppery, sweetly putrid smell. With her flesh so close to mine, I start to gag, it gets hard to breathe. I reach up and grab her wrists, gripping her by her coat sleeves. I want to spit in her face but my mouth is dry. I struggle to turn from her, shove her back, put distance between us.

  She lets go of my parka and slams back my arms. “You—do—not—touch—me.” Her voice is a shriek so deafening the last word climbs past the range of my hearing. My ears are hollowed out, ringing.

  Moira pushes into me with incredible force and I fly back, finding myself splayed out on the ground again, stunned. But I shake my head to clear it, search desperately for a second wind.

  If I can get away, I’m the one the Riders will follow. Emily might have time to escape if she’s able to stand, able to move.

  I roll over, scramble onto my hands and knees, this time refuse to waste a second but lift up like a sprinter at the start of a race with my butt in the air. I push off with all the strength in my thighs I can muster, take off running back down the open midway.

  Running without traction in the snow. Running against the wind, trying to suck enough air into my constricted chest to keep going.

  I hear breezy laughter behind me. Someone says, unconcerned, “It’s only fair that she gets a head start.”

  I’m amazed I’m able to run. Where is this energy coming from? Maybe it’s a last burst before the end—a final surge of power before I collapse into a crumpled heap.

  I curse the snow that slows me, boots sinking into the softness below the crust. Past the fun house and the haunted house the midway forks left to rows of food carts and trailers but when I try to heave myself in that direction I slip, nearly fall but manage to shove myself up with the palm of my right hand, the hand that was torn by glass. It stings but the pain adds to the sudden surge of strength I feel, keeps me going—

  —going to a spot where the chain link fence has been beaten down—a gap, another opening. If I reach it, maybe I can work my way through the tangle of vines, back to the street beyond—or circle back to Emily.

  But like the monsters that once jumped from the shadows in the haunted house, Riders leap into view from behind the carts and the trailers, fan out across the open ground. I spin in the other direction, retreat, stumble and nearly fall once more but make it back toward the gaming booths, the place where I came in.

  Here, too, from behind the counters where carnies once stood, Riders pop up inside the booths just as I imagined they would when I passed this way the first time—perfect targets now, if I only had the rifle. They point and laugh and cheer as they watch me struggle.

  I’m really stumbling now, my legs not working like they were just seconds before, the soft snow below the crust pulling at me like small puddles of quicksand. When I’m almost back to the big rides, I can’t see any moonlit figures ahead of me except for a small shape on the ground—Emily, lying where I left her. Running away, trying to get the Riders to follow me, isn’t helping her escape. She’s too hurt to move.

  I look from one side of the midway to the other, from the Ferris wheel to the Octopus and beyond but still see no Riders. I have the wild hope that maybe they’re all behind me now, that there’s a sliver of a chance I can grab Emily and make it out the other way, past the last of these big rides, out the other end of the park.

  Sure. Grab Emily—throw her over your shoulder, carry her in your arms. You’re fooling yourself.

  But I can’t leave her.

  Run, just run. Do what you can before it’s too late.

  Just as I’m almost past the saucer shape of the Gravitron—close, very close to Emily now—an ear-splitting squeal of metal grinding against metal makes me instinctively hunker down like a bomb’s just gone off. I look all around, thinking it must have been a ferocious blast of wind but then see the saucer actually begin to spin—spin very slowly and for only a few feet like the last clicks of an enormous roulette wheel.

 
For a moment I expect lights to snap on, carnival music to play. Imagine the Riders have a generator powerful enough to make everything in the carnival work, bring this spectral park back to life. But nothing happens—only the wind continues to shriek and moan.

  I’m wasting precious seconds, stopped in my tracks, unsure what to do, when the door of the saucer flops open, clanging with a wallop against the base of the ride. There’s now a slender gap, a dark tunnel that leads to ride’s interior. Under the pale light of the moon, it looks as murky and fathomless as the bottom of a deep well.

  Is this another invitation, like the flash of light showing the way into the tangle of vines? Moira—waiting for me inside. She will have to force me to do what she wants this time, drag me into that thing. As I stare at it, the Gravitron reminds me of a saucer-shaped tomb.

  There’s laughter in dark recesses around the midway, laugher blown to me by the wind. I realize I haven’t outrun the Riders, merely moved on to another part of their playground.

  There is a tap on my shoulder. I spin around, see only a thin black shade slip behind the rim of the Matterhorn. I turn back and there she is. About two yards away. Nearly close enough to touch, to scuffle with.

  And then I hear them all, see them—in an instant the Riders pressing in again but giving Moira and me space. This is still between her and me. They start clapping, hooting, roaring like sports fans at a game.

  I’m surrounded and realize my only choice is to charge at her, hurl myself at her, wanting to knock her down, get the upper hand if only for a moment. Buy myself a few more precious seconds.

  But without seeming to move her feet, she shifts. She shifts just far enough to the side that I run right past, have a hard time stopping myself without tumbling over. I look around, at the rides and the fence beyond, back down to the far end of the midway.

  Stay on your feet. Turn and run. Try—

  Try what? I have to stand and face her. Fight. The Riders are between me and the fence that encircles the carnival rides. Between me and the far end of the midway. Between me and Emily. Everywhere.

  They start to chant—Blood for blood. Blood for blood. They have reached the end of the ceremony at last—and I am Moira’s sacrifice.

  I scan all the bloodless faces around me, each pair of eyes shaded by dark glasses, each mouth like a carmine scar, each body clothed in gradations of black. Aisa must be somewhere in the crowd. With Milo and Bodie. And she will not save me this time.

  What do I do when Moira attacks me? Scratch, hit, kick? Bite?

  She is walking toward me, unmistakably, deliberately walking this time—I can see her legs move, hear the crunch of her feet on snow. I keep backing up until I can’t go any farther. She’s driven me back to the smooth side of the Gravitron, my shoulders pressed against it. I see her smile—everything working to plan, just as she wants it.

  How will she kill me? With black-gloved hands? With the heels of her fashionable suede boots?

  She’s directly in front of me now, an arm’s length away. And with incredible speed she lashes out with her right hand, gloved fingers latching onto my neck, pressing into my throat, beginning to squeeze with shocking power.

  In seconds my head is light, like I’m spinning into a yawning vortex. I try to gasp. I snatch at her wrists with weakening hands. I’m barely aware that the chanting of the spectators has turned into confused shouting. There’s some movement at the fringe of my vision—shoving, jabbing—shuffling bodies being pushed aside.

  And then Moira is wrenched away.

  I collapse back against the Gravitron’s side, stroking my throat, trying to rub away the pain, wheezing and struggling to suck in as much air as I can. But I can see that, very near to me—

  A black figure, a tall Black Rider, has Moira in a chokehold. Bodie? Milo? Would they dare? The Rider’s head is covered by a hood, his face impossible to see.

  Moira thrashes and writhes like a panther in a snare. She claws, she kicks back at her attacker’s shins, tries to slam the back of her head against his face. Slashing, beating, twisting like a dying animal in his grip.

  But this Rider hardly moves, is locked onto her, holding her fast like she has all the strength of a child.

  Then two figures are at his side—Doon and another member of Moira’s tribe. But the stranger whirls around, drags Moira back with him until he, too, is pressed against the Gravitron. I scramble aside to give them room, not really frightened by what’s happening but fascinated by it, like it’s a slow motion car crash or a gradual tumble off a ledge in a dream.

  I desperately want to see who this is. I want to see his face—but Moira’s thrashing and the hood he wears keep his features obscured.

  “Try to interfere and I will kill her,” he says. His voice reverberates out to the crowd, fills the space, cuts through the tempest. He’s not panting, not winded at all.

  The voice—so familiar. The body of this Rider—it looks—

  “Can’t kill me,” Moira gets out, her voice broken, nearly smothered. “Can’t die.”

  “I can kill you,” the one who holds her says, raising his voice still louder. “I’ve done it before. We can die. You’re all fools if you think we can’t.”

  The Riders are closing in, only a few feet away now. They’re howling with rage, getting ready to step in. Each one weighing the consequences, considering the stranger’s words. I imagine only Aisa and her crew are hanging back, waiting to see what happens.

  Doon is hovering closest to us. Without warning, he shifts position like Moira had when I charged at her, without deliberate movement, is suddenly at her side like there’s a jump in an old reel of film I’m watching. The Rider clutching Moira reaches out with her, holds her aloft with a hand around her throat, leaving her feet to dangle above the ground. He calls out above all the clamor, “There is death—and I will show it to you.”

  And he releases Moira. She sinks to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Then he’s at my side.

  Larkin. It’s Larkin.

  Why did he wait so long?

  He looks at me for only a moment, his eyes uncovered, bottomless indigo pools.

  “Come,” he says to me.

  “Is she?”

  “No, not yet. But they’ll think she is.”

  Over Larkin’s shoulder—faster than I can see how it happens—Doon’s face appears. My face has a split-second to react, to warn him with my expression—no time to get a single word out.

  But Larkin knows. He twists to the right, slams his elbow into Doon’s abdomen. I can hear the thud, like the wallop of a bat against a hanging side of beef. Doon bends sharply but recovers almost immediately and smacks Larkin across the face, knocking him into center of the crowd, sending other Riders gliding back, out of the way of the combatants.

  Although Larkin acts like the blow has stunned him, sent him reeling, he never falls, stays light on his feet, crouching, ready, a slight smile on his face as if he welcomes this.

  Doon lumbers toward him, not gliding, no longer as agile as he was. He takes a swing at Larkin and Larkin drops to his haunches, then throws himself headfirst into Doon, sending him flying. Doon is only halfway back to his feet before Larkin smashes him back down with a slashing downward movement of his left elbow, then knees him hard in the face. Doon plummets forward, face-first on the ground. He’s twitching, like a condemned man strapped to an electric chair after the current dies away. Twitching like William did.

  Larkin looks all around the open midway. “Do you want to see how our kind can die? Do you really want to see this?”

  Those words, they make my spine feel like ice. Maybe I’m wrong—maybe it’s not Larkin. I never heard him speak like this. Is it possible to reconcile this changed creature with the boy I knew?

  He sinks to one knee, leans over Doon. From a pocket of the frayed black overcoat he wears he removes a dark object, something thin and steely like a pick or a spike. He folds back the collar of Doon’s jacket, aims th
e point of the tool he holds at something that looks like a lump on the back of Doon’s neck. Then he wraps his hands around the handle of the tool in one huge fist, lifts his arms up high.

  The Riders surrounding us are frantic, horrified, begin to uselessly chant—Not fair, Not fair—but not one makes a move to help their comrade, not one takes a step forward. The thin body of the Rider I called Larkin tenses, starts to bring down the blow when—

  —a shriek erupts from near the fighters, a haunted, piercing wail of such agony it makes me think that all those the plague destroyed in Raintree are suddenly crying out from their graves.

  Heads turn to where Moira is still on the snowy ground, trying to push herself up, pointing at Larkin. Her mouth trembles open but no words emerge. She climbs painfully to her feet, lurches over to him. Larkin still has his arms raised but is looking at her over his shoulder. Her hands grasp at his—slender, black-gloved hands clawing at his pale, exposed fingers—trying to keep him from dealing the fatal blow.

  Her shades have fallen off. I can almost imagine I see something human in her eyes, an iris, a pupil, a center lens that’s focused on Larkin, that’s pleading, that shows real emotion. She’s been brought down to the level of a mere mortal. To my level.

  I hear Larkin say, “Well?”

  She tries to push his hands down and he lets her. He’s no longer poised to strike. Moira keeps a hand over his and lifts another to point at me. “Why her? Why—save her?” Her voice is a rasp, a ghost of its former self.

  He shrugs and looks at me. He’s so strange. I keep thinking of him both as Larkin and as a stranger who only resembles him. The face is the same, the build, the voice. But his eyes—empty black pools where before there was substance, something recognizable.

  Moira’s eyes are as black as his. I was wrong to think I could see anything human in them.

  I watch Larkin or this likeness of Larkin and Moira together. They look like grieving lovers, hands together. That can’t be—he just tried to kill her.