‘Sorry!’ I shout as we carry on through the gardens and back into the forest. My sneakers slip on pine needles as we lurch exhausted, bleeding and poisoned through the trees. We tumble into the bed of a river and slosh upstream through the trickling water.
A telltale hum alerts us to the fact that our little executioners are back. I hear buzzing to my right and I spin, slinging the handful of stones in the direction of the noise with my good arm. A single faerie archer is battered by the onslaught, my sharp granite missiles ripping into him.
We climb up the bank and on to another path.
‘Left or right?’ I say as the faeries and their animals crowd into the riverbed below.
Ronin looks at me, a string of saliva hanging from his lip. ‘Right.’
‘You’re sure?’
He grabs my arm and pulls me down the path to the right. We turn the corner and run straight into a dead end. There’s a small cliff ahead of us, just too tall for us to climb.
‘We’re trapped,’ I say.
Ronin turns and fires a round as the first of the armoured squirrels reach us. In my peripheral vision I see furry body parts hit a pine tree. More squirrels and faeries appear and we level our guns at them.
‘Chances of us getting slaughtered now?’ I hiss.
‘A cautiously optimistic ninety-ten,’ Ronin whispers back. ‘I didn’t entirely expect this …’
‘Just shut up,’ I say. ‘You’re the one that got us killed. Just remember that in these last ten seconds of your life.’
A rope drops from the cliff above us and hits me on the head. We glance up to see a curious face looking down at us, nose twitching.
‘Hey, Big Ones, hey,’ Klipspringer says. ‘You looksosososososososoterrible. I been following you for aggggeeesss.’
‘Klipspringer!’ I say. Half-human, half-bok, all nervous excitement, Klipspringer gives me a smile and bounces up and down. The last time I saw him was at the Haven, Pat’s refuge for the Hidden, and he’s grown a couple of inches. His bok hindquarters are longer and his human torso has a little bit more muscle.
‘Well whatyouwaitingforhey? Come on away from those faeriedummies,’ he calls.
I grab the rope and scramble up the cliff face. Ronin fires several times into the mass of winged and furry bodies, and then follows me up. I reach the top and turn around to look down over the edge. Ronin is shouting like a maniac and swinging wildly on the rope, trying to simultaneously shoot faeries and climb. Several squirrels have attached themselves to his trousers, and a faerie has a handful of his hair and is stabbing him repeatedly in the ear.
I pull my gun from its holster and aim over the side. The last time I tried to help Ronin like this I ended up shooting him, and this time the odds are much worse. I breathe out slowly and feel the giddy sense of risk. It’s possible that I will help him, but it’s also entirely possible that I will accidentally shoot him in the face. The thrill of it, the gun in my hands holding the power of life and death. I see the odds: the movement of the wind, the swinging back and forth of the target, my own inner condition. For a split second those things align in a microscopic window of opportunity. I squeeze the trigger and the faerie in Ronin’s hair explodes.
Ronin looks up at me in horror. He kicks his legs and squashes two squirrels against the cliff, then, grunting, scrambles up the rope.
His ear is bleeding and the side of his face is completely paralysed. ‘Whaa the fuuuu,’ he says, the left side of his lip slopping about like a fish out of water.
‘Come on, Big Ones, hey hey,’ Klipspringer says and raises an eyebrow like we’re naughty kids. ‘No time to talktalk now.’
We follow him across the rocks to a cave.
‘We can’t stay here, Klipspringer,’ I say. ‘They’ll find us.’
‘They can’t come in here, duh. Ndiru magic, hey, Big One, it’s the powerfullest.’
Well, we certainly can’t run any more. My arm has gone completely numb and Ronin looks like he’s about to collapse.
‘OK,’ I say, slumping down against the cave wall. ‘I guess I’ll just have to trust you, bok-boy.’
The cave is filled with junk. There’s a cardboard cut-out of Phil Collins, and the walls are covered with posters of action stars that I remember from when Kyle and I downloaded an entire eighties action movie library. Those old geezers on Internet forums can be as nostalgic as they want, but the films were all shit.
‘What are you doing here, Klipspringer?’ I ask. ‘Why aren’t you at Pat’s?’
‘This is my secret place, duh,’ he says. ‘The Ndiru have to be in the naturenature when the Bright Star is out. To talk to the ancestorguys, hey?’
Ronin groans. He’s sprawled against the cave wall and he doesn’t look good. His face is slightly green and the black rings around his eyes have gone purple. Drool drips from the side of his hanging lip and one of his eyes is twitching. ‘You fuuu,’ he murmurs and then shakes his head. I kneel down next to him and dab at the blood with a Ninja Turtles face cloth that I find on a crate full of Tamagotchis.
‘He needs help, Klipspringer,’ I say. ‘Do you have an anti-venom kit?’
The bok-boy snorts with contempt. ‘Anti-venomoms don’t work. I’ll make the magic tea.’
He whistles to himself as he rounds up a handful of blue M&Ms, some scraggly weeds and a packet of plastic army figurines, dumping the lot in a pot on top of a gas cooker. He murmurs something in another language as the pot begins to boil.
He hands me a Who’s the Boss? mug. ‘Thanks, Klipspringer,’ I say, looking at Tony Danza’s chipped ceramic face. ‘But I don’t think this is going to work. We really need anti-venom.’
‘Drink,’ he says sternly and puts his hands on his springbok hindquarters.
‘OK, OK.’ I sip the disgusting mixture. ‘There, I can almost taste the magic. Now we need to get an anti-venom ki—’
My shoulder begins to tingle and the numbness slides off my arm.
‘It works!’
‘Duh,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘Ndiru magic is the powerfullest, you must listen better, hey?’
I refill the mug from the pot. Ronin is slipping in and out of consciousness as I hold it to his lips and make him sip. His face begins to twitch and then his eyes shoot open. He gasps and looks around wildly.
‘It’s OK,’ I say.
He turns to look at me. ‘You.’
‘It wasn’t just me,’ I say with a smile. ‘It was Klipspringer. We both saved you.’
‘You fucking shot at me. One millimetre off and it would have blown a hole through my eye.’ He shoves me away and pushes himself to his feet. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘Hey!’ I say. ‘A little frikken gratitude would be great.’
‘It was one faerie. I could have got to the top,’ he says.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Sure. You know, I’m sick of this. I save you, no gratitude, you don’t give a shit. I save the world, no gratitude, nobody gives a shit.’
‘YOU saved the world?’ Ronin says, his eyes wide. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be wandering around looking for your girlfriend, and you would never find her BECAUSE SHE’D BE SPIDER FOOD.’
‘HEY!’ The shout from Klipspringer is so unexpected that we both shut up.
‘Stopshoutingithurtsmyears,’ Klipspringer says with an anxious twitch of his nose.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘He’s right, we’ve got better things to do than listen to you bellyaching about how poor widdle you is so underappreciated.’ Ronin limps over to the mouth of the cave. ‘Ndiru magic might be keeping them away, but as soon as we step outside we’re going to be cut to shreds. How are we going to get out of here?’
The bok-boy capers up and down excitedly. ‘I’ll show you, Big Ones, duh, the way only Klipspringer knows. You gonna be amazeded.’
Ronin gives me a dirty look as he follows Klipspringer to the back of the cave. I pull a face at him and pop the middle finger at his back. Asshole.
‘Alittlehelpwouldbenic
e,’ Klipspringer says, putting his back to an old fridge filled with tiny plastic trolls with bright blue hair. We help him push the fridge aside to reveal a small opening in the cave wall.
‘Comenowhurryup,’ he says, and ducks into the opening.
‘You go first,’ Ronin says. ‘I don’t want you shooting me in the back.’
‘Yeah, I will,’ I reply. ‘I don’t want you accidentally leading us into another fucking catastrophe.’
I climb through the opening and follow Klipspringer along a tunnel. Ronin swears and grunts behind me as we fumble our way through the darkness. Luckily the tunnel quickly opens up into a cavern filled with crystal stalactites and stalagmites. Red clay cave paintings of bok-people cover the walls.
‘This is the secretsacredsecret place, Big Ones, so sshhhh,’ Klipspringer says, putting his finger to his lips.
In the centre of the cave are bones, hundreds of them, bleached white by time.
‘Ndiruboneyard,’ Klipspringer says reverently. ‘The ancestor-guys are here. You can’t cross without the ancestorblessing, hey? If you try, it’s badbadbadbad.’
He holds up a hand and begins to sing in his strange language, high and sweet like he’s part of a boys’ choir. In my mind’s eye I can see generations of bok-people stretching back through the centuries, their noses twitching, their eyes bright and dewy, all collecting some serious bric-a-brac from across the ages.
An apparition appears in the centre of the bones, a misty bok-person who raises a hand in greeting. He is very old, his wild hair is long, and he has an impressive beard that stretches down to his hooves.
‘The ancestorguy,’ whispers Klipspringer. ‘You have to trade him something to pass.’
‘You have anything, Ronin?’ I say.
He searches through his pockets and pulls out cigarettes, a lighter, a penknife, some mints and an old ticket for a roller coaster.
I go through my own pockets and find a couple of coins, a red Life Saver covered in lint and hair and the yellow Pornography Anonymous key ring.
The old ancestorguy points a shimmering finger at the key ring.
‘Your trade is good, good,’ Klipspringer says, nodding his head, clearly impressed. ‘He’s giving you something in return.’
The ancestorguy points again. There in the bones, an old spoon lies wedged between a femur and a patella. The handle has been shaped into the wavy tail of a bok.
‘Er, thanks,’ I say.
‘Getit, hey,’ Klipspringer says.
I walk across, kneel down and free the spoon from the bones. A flash of recognition jolts through me and I intuitively know it’s one of the items for my mojo bag. I slide it carefully into the canvas pocket and nod in thanks to the ancestorguy. I look around for some indication that I’ve unlocked an achievement or levelled up, but there’s only silence.
‘Bye, hey, Big Ones, bye now,’ Klipspringer says as we get into the car. He’s led us across the boneyard and through the forest without a single faerie attacking. I wave to him as he disappears among the trees, jumping from rock to rock and humming softly to himself.
I look at Ronin. We’re both bloody and bruised. Ronin’s face seems to be regaining some movement, but he still looks like he’s recovering from a stroke. On the plus side, the Obayifo poison seems to have relieved his alcohol cravings. Despite the cuts and bruises on every inch of flesh, he actually looks slightly better.
We drive in silence. I expect to be happy to get home, but when I see Table Mountain I feel more anxious and irritated than ever. Something hangs over Cape Town like an invisible smog, dark and noxious. There’s an irritability in the air, like before a storm, and I feel like I want to scratch at my forehead.
‘I feel it,’ Ronin says through the side of his mouth.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Nothing good,’ he replies.
Back at his apartment, we’re silent as we treat our wounds. I’m pissed off. I have the feeling that getting shot up with faerie poison was eminently avoidable if we had just thought about it before running head first into Scorpion Gully. A dark feeling of loathing runs over me like oil and I glare at Ronin.
‘You got something to say?’ he asks, returning the glare with interest.
‘I’m your partner, Ronin,’ I say. ‘I’m no longer that kid who hired you to find his girlfriend.’
‘Apprentice.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not my partner, you’re my apprentice.’
‘Seriously?’ I say. ‘You’ve got deep-seated psychological issues. You knew that waltzing into Squirrelskull like that was an invitation to get us fucked up, and you did it anyway. It’s like you’re trying to punish yourself for something and you’re dragging me into it with you.’
Ronin turns on me. ‘So I’m the one with deep-seated psychological issues? You’re fucking half Crow.’
‘Oh, now you’re a xenophobe too?’
‘Have you not been listening to me? I’ve always been a xeno-phobe when it comes to the Hidden. And unless it has escaped your attention, a Crow shaman was leading the attack on Hexpoort.’
‘You think I’m somehow in cahoots with that thing?’
Ronin pulls out a first-aid kit from under his kitchen sink and throws me some antiseptic and bandages. I grab them and start dabbing at my wounds, wincing as the antiseptic burns each tiny little cut.
‘No,’ he says. ‘First off because I’d never use the word “cahoots”, and second because I think you proved in our last little adventure trying to find your girlfriend that you’re not going over to the dark side. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t kill you when he had the chance.’
He has a point. The Tengu was there standing over me. It could have crushed me. But it didn’t.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘And I don’t like the fact that I’m half Crow any more than you do. So back the fuck off.’
The dark feeling rises, wrapping around me. I feel like I’m sweating hatred and malice. We stare into each other’s eyes like two animals on the brink of violence. And then before I know it we’ve both drawn our guns and are pointing them at each other. The Blackfish is centred on my chest and Ronin’s eyes bore into me. The gun in my hand feels warm and I visualise the odds of getting out of this alive. They’re not good.
‘Ronin,’ I say softly. ‘This is ridiculous. Something’s not right.’
‘I know,’ he replies, eyes not leaving me. ‘The city is … off. There’s something, something violent, in the air.’
‘So put down your gun,’ I say.
‘You first.’
We stand for a long moment with guns pointed before I sigh and show him that I’ve taken my finger off the trigger. I slide the handgun back into its holster. The Blackfish disappears beneath Ronin’s coat. We sit at the table in the kitchen and stare at each other.
‘Well that was weird,’ I say eventually. ‘What the fuck happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says, putting his hands to his temples and rubbing them. ‘We need to speak to the Blood Kraal. Whatever’s going on, they have to know what it is.’
‘OK,’ I say.
‘Oh, and sparky?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t ever draw your gun on me again.’
11
HATE COUTURE
‘THIS IS A bit touristy,’ I say as the boat ploughs through the waves towards Robben Island.
Ronin turns his back and walks away. I think I liked him better when he was a drunk.
I watch the island grow in front of us and look at my borrowed phone for the thousandth time today. No missed calls. No messages. Esmé and Kyle have both gone dark. I sigh and lean over the prow to look at the grey-green sea.
I deserve it. I deserve to be dumped. I deserve to be unfriended. I was so caught up in Hexpoort, like a fly in a spider’s web, that I put my old life on the back burner. I resist the urge to call either of them. I’ve left dozens of messages on both of their phones. They don’t want to sp
eak to me.
The boat coasts around Robben Island and pulls in to a small dock. I follow Ronin down the gangplank and across to a small service building. There’s a piece of graffiti on the wall and he traces it with his finger, mutters a few words in Xhosa, and then places his hand against the door. It slides open to reveal an elevator. ‘Welcome to the home of freedom,’ Ronin says, as he steps inside.
The elevator drops rapidly below sea level and my stomach lurches. When it stops, we step out into a bright, high-tech bunker. The entrance is a huge bubble-like room with giant windows that look out into the sea. Fish, seals and the occasional shark swim into view and then disappear. Through the window I can see that the facility stretches beneath the island like a barnacle clamped to a rock. In the distance, submarines marked with red dwarven runes are docked against airlocks.
Ronin checks us through a security gate guarded by two uniformed golems and we walk along the main thoroughfare. I see two dwarves drag a man with a black hood over his head into an area marked with the Forked Tongue sigil.
‘Dwarven Legion black ops,’ Ronin whispers. ‘Probably brought that poor bastard in by sub from Somalia or the DRC.’
‘Who is this Malachi asshole anyway?’ I say. ‘He waltzed into the Poort like he owned it.’
‘He’s the Samnite that heads up the black ops unit. You’re right. He’s a real asshole. One of Basson’s allies, but when Basson went down, nothing could tie them together. I would have loved to have seen him rot in one of his own cells.’
‘Hey, sugars. You look a little roughed up.’
We turn to see Katinka lounging in a chair flanked by two stern sangomas in suits, white beads and dark glasses. She is wearing neon-pink hotpants that highlight the darkness of her skin, and her platinum hair is tied up in a side ponytail.
‘Obayifo,’ Ronin says, plucking at the bandages wrapped around his arms. ‘What’s a girl like you doing classing up a place like this?’
‘Protective detail.’ She flicks her head at the sangomas. ‘Naebril is on the warpath and only my head on a spike will satisfy her.’
‘Hey, Tinks,’ I say with a grin. ‘Yeah, I saw the esteemed leader of the Flock at Hexpoort. She looked pissed.’
Kill Baxter Page 19