by Linsey, Tam
Choking in great gulps, she tightened her arms around his neck. “I didn’t let go.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you, God.”
Together they slogged to shore and climbed free of the river’s grasp. As Levi led the way downstream, Tula regained her composure. “How do we find Eily and Ana?” she whispered. They could not call out to the twins. They could not stop. The cannibal hunters would surely swim over if they knew their prey had crossed. She hoped the girls managed to stay together. As self sufficient as they seemed to be, they were still just children and should not be alone.
“They know we’re traveling this way. We’ll find each other.” Levi squeezed her hand in reassurance.
Tula wasn’t so sure. Were the girls ahead of or behind them? She didn’t know whether to drag her feet or break into a jog. Pressure built in her throat as she fought the urge to call out.
“Don’t fret. They run ahead, fall behind, but always manage to catch up. They’re like dogs.”
A shot of fear quickened her already racing pulse. “What is dogs?” Something about the word “dog” frightened her.
Levi let a laugh. “An animal. You’ll see when we reach the Holdout.”
True to Levi’s prediction, the girls scampered down the trail behind Tula and Levi as dawn enveloped the morning star on the horizon. They flung themselves against the adults, jabbering with abandon.
“We heard you crying in the water.”
“You passed us on the bank.”
“But the men hunters didn’t come.”
“We watched.”
“They’ll hunt the other side.”
Tula pressed her cheeks against their hair, arms around their shoulders. “Thank you, girls. I’m so glad you’re safe.”
Levi wrapped all three of them in a bear hug and grunted. “Safe.” He repeated the word in Cannibal and the twins beamed at him.
Haldanian Protectorate
Vitus blinked itchy eyes at the unfamiliar face on the monitor and leaned forward across his desk. The fiber optic light was off, leaving the room with only the dusky light from a single fluorescent bulb overhead. “I need those injections!”
The woman who called herself Dr. Rice nodded, her black skin and red eyes even more disturbing than Kaneka’s. “We’re working on accessing the data, but his notes are encrypted.”
Kaneka had missed his usual checkin, and Vitus had been forced to contact the Fosselites through official channels. He was overdue for his treatment by sixteen hours, and his skin had already begun to leach of color. Plus, his eyes had developed a light sensitivity he needed to talk to the doctor about. He snorted with disgust. “What good is immortality if you can be killed falling down the stairs?”
Dr. Rice cleared her throat. “There were … circumstances.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I believe you know this woman?” An image of Tula Macoby appeared in the data stream at the base of the screen.
Vitus’s nostrils flared and he looked back up into Dr. Rice’s eyes. “Why?”
“She and her companion were involved in Dr. Kaneka’s death. We are not sure how to proceed.”
“She killed him? Where is she?” He slapped his hands against the desk, causing the screen’s image to flutter. A stabbing pain inserted itself through his right temple.
“Escaped. We believe they are travelling back to the man’s settlement.”
“Well, find them!”
“We would like to. But we cannot travel by day, Dr. Dedecus. Perhaps your people would be willing to aid us, to return her to stand trial for murder …” She stared at him expectantly through the camera.
He sat back in his chair and considered. The Board could not know he’d been aware of Tula at the Fosselite compound. But he wanted her dead. “Contact Councilwoman Arnica.” He gave her to com code to the woman’s office. “Tell her Dr. Macoby tried to steal telomerase. That she murdered Dr. Kaneka in the process, and you hold the Protectorate responsible. Do you know where they went?”
“We have a general map location. We hope an airborne search can locate the settlement.”
“Fine. Oh, and do not mention my name, do you understand?”
Amarantox Plains
The sun had reached its zenith when Ana pointed to the sky behind him, her eyes wide and full of fear. Tula swiveled and jerked back with alarm. A fat plume of greasy yellow smoke billowed into the air, not far to the southwest.
“Cannibals?” she asked.
One of the girls shook her head. The other child whispered, “Flame runnas.”
Terror plucked Tula’s heart. Levi shook his head, looking up and down the river. “They caught me near here last time.”
He hurried them around a bend where the stream had stacked driftwood into a tangled pile. Pulling on a trunk, he freed it from the mess. “Let’s hide here.”
Tula yanked logs free and helped create a lean-to against the pile, while the girls scattered small sticks over the support beams. Soon the four of them sat beneath the cramped shelter with crossed legs.
“How long should we wait?” Levi asked.
Tula pressed her lips together and shook her head. “They go back at sundown.”
As a distraction, he pulled out a string he’d woven from cattail fibers. “Looks like we have some time, girls. Let me show you a trick.”
With deft fingers, he twisted the string into a cat’s cradle. The girls leaned in, mesmerized, and soon started showing him string games of their own. Confined as they were, they played and laughed, and with Tula’s encouragement, the twins seemed eager to learn his language. He tried to tell a knock-knock joke, but the children didn’t understand the concept of knocking to enter a room, and they all ended up belly laughing at the confusion.
Levi was in the middle of another joke when a wild-eyed man appeared at the lean-to entrance. Wearing nothing but dripping fur leggings, the stranger grimaced and glanced at the sky before diving into the shelter. Eily and Ana squealed, pulling back to the rough walls. The logs shifted, threatening to collapse the structure as the man squeezed amidst their legs. He smelled like wet ashes, and each breath wheezed from him as if he’d just run a marathon “Flame runnas,” he gasped. “Keep the peace.”
Tula quaked with fear, curling into a ball as far from the cannibal as she could get in the tiny space.
Levi looked from her to the twins. “What mean?”
The twins watched the stranger with caution, but also glanced out to the sky and back. Ana wiped her hand across her nose and answered. “No fight. Safe until flame runna goes.”
Levi glared at the man, then nodded once.
In the already overcrowded shelter, they could not sit without physical contact with the stranger. He reeked of smoke and wet fur and nervous sweat. The cannibal shifted to sit cross-legged. His braided beard dripped bloody river water onto his naked chest; a bone labret pierced one side of his lower lip, and a tear in the other side bled profusely. Small blisters stretched from shoulder to the back of his wrist, likely from a duster flash he’d escaped.
Thick silence filled the lean-to. Although the cannibal faced Levi, Tula could feel the stranger’s sidelong attention crawl over her and the twins. Every time he looked, she shuddered. Be calm. Show no fear. Like the implicit restriction against killing the Knowing, there was apparently a cannibal law regarding truce in the face of a greater enemy. After that, she assumed they were fair game.
And this was no man of Knowing, like Osula and Brin. This was a true cannibal, one who only hours before had been hunting them. Tula’s heart raced so fast she thought it might escape her chest.
They must prove to this man they were formidable opponents. Levi didn’t speak Cannibal. She had to take the lead.
“How many hunters?” Her voice emerged too high. The stranger half turned from Levi to blatantly rake her up and down out of the corner of his eye. “You a flame runna.”
Taking a steadying breath, she
said, “I’ve got the Knowing. The Flame Runners don’t respect that.”
His eyelids twitched, and he shifted to face her head on. He searched her again, looking for scars, she was sure.
She willed her words to be firm. “Spirit Healers. Our skin don’t need the marks.” Best to include the twins in the safety net.
He flicked a look back at the twins, then returned his focus to her. “What about him?”
She didn’t know how to protect Levi. “My mate.” Maybe it would be enough. “How many hunters?”
The man curled his lip in disgust. “Flame runnas took out most.” He eyed her again, then leaned forward and wrapped his hand around her wrist. “We find the rest at dark. You come for healing.”
Tula’s chest tightened in fear. She hadn’t counted on her bluff being called.
Levi grabbed the stranger’s hand and yanked it off Tula’s wrist. “Get your hands off her.”
The man complied, but faced off with Levi, shoulders back as they stared each other down. Classic cannibalistic dominance move, but she noted he favored his burned arm. She had to deflect any violence. What would Osula say? “What you got to trade?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ain’t worth nothing to me to help you. We move on. Keep the peace.”
Repeating his claim for sanctuary appeared to deflate his aggression a bit. He didn’t look at her, but answered. “Depend on how strong you healing.”
Again, silence tightened around them. The twins had melded into the walls, watching the interactions with wide, cautious eyes. Levi sat with his fists clenched at the ready should the cannibal attack. But the man wouldn’t. He held his own, but didn’t seem ready to violate the pact.
Could they simply part ways once night fell? She doubted that much luck. The Knowing had a certain responsibility among the cannibals, and she’d be breaking it if she didn’t trade her services. But if they ended up in the midst of a cannibal band …
The cannibal rolled his injured shoulder and craned his neck to look out at the sky again. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the river. Not long until it would be safe to leave the shelter.
Tula chewed her lips and surveyed at the man’s blisters. Then she looked at his bleeding mouth. A thin mustache straggled over his upper lip. If she kissed him, maybe he’d be drugged enough for them to escape; an open wound would exponentially magnify the effects of the chemicals. The thought of putting her mouth on his repulsed her. She tried to summon some saliva to her dry tongue and rose to her knees. “Let me show you my healing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your arm is useless.” Taking a chance, she flicked a purposeful glance to Levi.
The stranger looked between them and pursed his mouth, as if finally realizing he was outnumbered. “Keep the peace.”
“I keep the peace.”
He clenched his teeth, but nodded. Eyes wary, he didn’t move as she leaned in to put both hands on his cheeks.
This close, the metallic scent of blood mixed with an oily tang on his skin made her want to vomit. She held her breath, summoning saliva to her dry mouth. He sat stiff, eyes wide open and focused on her face. Trying not to retch, she slipped her tongue between his lips, sliding along his gums and to the wound on his lip. He recoiled at her touch.
Then the chemicals hit him. He clasped both hands around the back of her neck and opened his mouth wide.
In confused horror, Levi watched Tula seduce the cannibal with her kiss. She’d used the word “healing,” and Levi knew she was drugging the stranger to save them from whatever the cannibal demanded of them. But how far was she going to take it? One of the man’s hands swept up and clutched her breast.
“Tula?” Levi’s voice was rough. His hands trembled with indecision.
The cannibal pressed her back, and she toppled off her knees with the stranger on top of her. Levi flinched, muscles tight, but remained rooted in place. She’d kissed the man, not the other way around. She moaned — or was that a protest? Surely she wouldn’t prostitute herself to save him and the girls? She appeared to be pinned. Should he intervene?
The hand on her breast roamed lower, hiking the edge of her robe up her thigh. She bucked, and her moan became a scream, blocked as it was by the stranger’s mouth.
Levi’s hesitation snapped. The tension in his chest erupted in a roar of rage. Springing to his feet, his shoulders cracked against the lean-to. Logs and branches scattered like buckshot. His fingers fisted the cannibal’s greasy hair. He ripped the stranger off Tula and flung him onto the sandy bank as if bucking a hay bale.
The newness of Levi’s rage made his vision flicker. Darkness surrounded everything but one desire — blood.
Like a bull, he charged from the wreckage, skidded to his knees, and drove a fist into the stranger’s face. Again and again and again. All his frustration over the last few weeks found release in the sensation of his knuckles against hot blood and bone. This was what it meant to attack with intent. And it felt good.
Crying out, the bloodied man tried to protect himself with his forearms. The savage language of cannibals streamed from his broken lips. Gibberish. Levi slammed his fist into the babbling mouth.
Then on each side of him, the high, sweet voices of angels pierced his awareness. “Keep the peace! Keep the peace!”
Four small, fragile hands, cool against his wrath, held his next swing in check. Panting like an animal, Levi blinked at the prone man on the sand below him. The setting sun bathed the scene in the orange light of Hell. The cannibal’s broken teeth gleamed with blood. He seemed unable to focus. With pupils so dilated they completely obscured the irises, his eyes rolled up into his head.
“What am I doing?” Levi gasped, gulping for air.
“Keep the peace.” Ana wrapped her arms around his bicep and urged him away from the carnage.
They limped north, leaving the river. Levi stalked ahead while the girls trudged in silence with Tula. She was worried about Levi. He wasn’t hurt physically, but something in him had changed. The passive man once captured by the Protectorate was gone. And she knew he despised himself.
There’s no time for coddling. Cannibals could be on their trail, right now. Ahead, Levi halted at a dry creek bed, the golden spikes of his hair silver with moonlight. He gestured a change of direction, but didn’t wait for them to catch up.
Ana released Tula’s hand, skipped a little ahead, and pivoted to walk backwards. Her eyes reflected the light from the moon. She’d scarcely looked away from Tula all night. “Tell me the magic.”
Magic? Of course the girls would think that. Tula shook her head. “Not magic. My green skin makes medicine.” The child cocked her head and frowned. Tula clarified. “You know the silliness you feel in the sun? That’s medicine.”
Ana seemed to consider, stepping absently over a rock without even looking. “That’s why you don’t sex with Levi.”
The bluntness of her statement made Tula laugh. “Partly.”
“I have the Knowing, too? The Spirit Healing?”
Tula didn’t like the look in the girl’s moonlit eye. “I don’t know.” She wasn’t lying. She had no idea if the Fosselites had interfered with the girl’s chemical makeup. The children were remarkably immune to the sun’s rays. But Tula assumed that might be a developed tolerance due to their overexposure under the Fosselite lights.
“You told we did.”
“I was trying to keep us safe.”
“I’m going to try.”
Tula stopped walking. Eily stopped beside her. These girls were going to have enough trouble fitting into Levi’s community as it was. She hated to think they planned activities that would ostracize them. “Ana, promise me you won’t. The medicine is dangerous.”
The child rejoined Tula, taking her hand. “Don’t worry. I know Levi your man.”
Tula faltered. She’d never considered the girls might try to seduce Levi. “When the medicine wears off, that cannibal will be angry.”
Ana glanced behind them. “Only ‘cause you didn’t sex with him.”
Eily chimed in for the first time. “Ana, sexing puts the baby in you. Then you like Mama and can’t run.”
The girls were silent until they reached the creek bed and looked for Levi. He sat near some shrubs, and rose when he saw them and kept moving. “Levi mad you don’t sex with him,” Ana stated.
“No, he’s not,” Tula answered. “He’s shamed. He hurt that man. His people do not lift hands against each other. Or other people.”
Ana nodded. “He broke the peace.”
“More than that. With his people, you always keep the peace. They’re not cannibals. If you want to stay with us, you have to learn.”
“What about the hunger times?” Eily asked.
Tula skirted a clump of amarantox. “They don’t eat people. No matter what.”
“‘Cept the dead. No wasting,” Ana said.
“Not even the dead.”
Both girls snorted in disbelief or disgust, she couldn’t tell. How could she teach these girls about Levi’s peaceful ways when she’d failed to convert them in the first place? They were wild and willful, and in spite of her growing affection, she worried they would never fit in. She worried she would never fit in.
Levi set his pack down and stretched his back. The sun cast long morning shadows, promising Tula and the girls a good day of photosynthesis. Tula stuffed her robe into his pack with a tired grin, and he didn’t admonish her nakedness. She needed her strength. They’d trudged the dry plains from sunset to sunup for four nights, keeping watch for the rising smoke of Blattvolk flame runners. This far east, he thought they might be safe.
Ana returned from her foraging empty handed. “I see hunters. They look for a Spirit Healer.” She raised a skinny arm to point west along their back-trail.