Wolfwater

by Alia Hess

  “Worse? But Winter burned down whole cities and enslaved so many people!”

  Sasha looked away. “I don’t want to tell whole story right now, Anise, but if you trust me, believe me when I say Krupin is worst. It is good thing he is dead. Before he ruin even more people’s lives.”

  Anise studied him behind her huge glasses. “I believe you.” She leaned back and smiled. “I still have the good news part to tell you too.”

  He sighed and nodded. “Okay. I am ready.”

  “I brought a few of those drones and computers with me. The rest are back in Burr for whenever you want to get them.”

  “Really?” He turned to Corvin. “Corvin! I can fly drone and tell everybody we are okay!”

  Corvin grinned, reaching over and clapping Sasha on the shoulder. “Good deal!”

  “And maybe I can fly to North and find Dusty!” He let out a hitching laugh. “I miss her face so bad. I can talk to everybody! Sasha is god, baby!”

  Anise laughed. “I don’t know how well any of them work after all this time, but you could fix them, right?”

  “Yes, I can fix, if you have parts here. Might have to take apart one drone to fix other one.”

  “I have some of those black rectangle things too. And a bunch of other stuff.”

  “Tablets! This is amazing, baby. I love you.”

  Anise looked at the floor.

  “How you bring all that stuff here? Would take, like, three weeks to walk here from Burr.”

  “Oh, no. There are a couple of men in a junkyard north of here that have some of their own vehicles. They call them ‘junkhunks.’ They look like the unholy union of a field plow and an airplane, but they’re fast.” She giggled. “I must have looked a sight sitting in that thing in my dress and hat. But when I heard that my god—I mean, um…” She cocked her head. “I guess I’m not sure what to call you anymore.”

  Corvin smiled. “He’s your muse, dear.”

  Anise clasped her hands together. “Oh, yes, I like that.”

  “What is ‘muse?’” Sasha asked.

  Corvin turned to him. “An inspirational person for a creative artist, which Anise clearly is.”

  Anise was shy, but damn was there a lot of desire and admiration behind those big glasses of hers. She knew he wasn’t a god, but she wasn’t exaggerating when she said he was her hero. Her favorite celebrity. The thought was a bit unnerving—not that he didn’t enjoy women fawning over him, but he hardly felt deserving of such feelings. Her passion for him had created a great force for good though.

  Sasha beckoned to her. “Hey, come here for second.”

  Anise walked hesitantly to his side and he gathered her into a hug. Her breath was shallow in his ear and she trembled against him like one of those tiny designer dogs, always afraid of getting stepped on. She slowly brought her arms up around him.

  He whispered. “You are nice woman, Anise. You don’t got to be so nervous and shy around me.”

  Her voice quivered. “I’m sorry, Sasha.”

  “And stop saying sorry. You don’t need to be sorry. If my teasing and flirting make you feel bad—more nervous—I will stop, okay? But you can joke with me and not be shy around me if you want to. I think we could be friends, yeah?”

  She made a little noise and clutched him like she thought she might fall.

  “I like having womans as friends. And Corvin too. He is little bit like woman—”

  “I heard that, Sasha,” Corvin said, but there was an edge of amusement in his voice.

  “Butt out, Corvin. I am having private hug with Anise right now.”

  “You’re two feet away from me.”

  Sasha smirked and let go of Anise.

  She stepped back, her eyes wide and wet. Wringing her hands together, she glanced at Corvin, then back to Sasha. “I, uh… I’m feeling a bit—a bit overwhelmed right now. I’m going to go. I’ll be back in a while. If you really need something, just shout for me. I’ll be downstairs.”

  Anise turned and hurried out the door.

  “I think I made things worst.” Sasha sighed.

  “No,” Corvin said. “You just gave that woman a spiritual experience she’ll never forget.”

  Sasha huffed.

  “I’m serious. You make a good god. Much better than I would be. All that power would go to my head in a second.”

  “I don’t think that is true. You have worked hard to be better person.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to risk it, just in case. I like the new me. So don’t make me a demigod or something like that, okay? I’d ruin everything.”

  Sasha chuckled and burrowed into the pillows. “I’m going to worry about being god later—or hero, or muse, or whatever. Right now, I am going to think about being warm in bed, not in piece-of-shit hut on beach with guys named Sharkguts. And I am going to think about how soon I will fly drone and hopefully find Dusty and retrieval party. All of this mess going to be over soon.”

  “Amen, Sasha.” Corvin leaned back, propping his hands behind his head. “Amen.”

  16

  ~ Korova ~

  The rumbling of the wagon brought Owl back to consciousness. It also brought back the pain in her skull; it seemed to constrict with every heartbeat. She tried to stand, but bumped her head against the top of the cage enclosing her. Gripping the metal bars, she peered out, staring into another cage. Dusty sat inside, hands in her lap as she talked to a preteen Maralti boy beside her.

  “Dusty! Are you okay?”

  She turned to Owl, one eye swollen shut and bruises wrapping her nose. “You’re awake! Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

  Owl cringed. “You don’t look okay. My head is killing me. That fucking merchant hit me with his gun. Twice.”

  “Yeah, the guard smacked me around too. I got in some good kicks before that, though. Got him right in the nuts.”

  The Maralti boy giggled. Dusty gestured to him. “This is Jon’kin.” She frowned, her mouth wavering. “Auth’ni and the little girl are dead.”

  “Sara,” Jon’kin said.

  “Yeah, Merriweather told me that. We failed.” Fighting back tears, Owl pressed her face to the bars and stuck her arm through. Dusty reached out and grabbed Owl’s hand. Bottles in the crates around them tinkled together and a small box fell on the floor as the wagon hit a bump. A pile of koya horns, like a stack of grisly firewood, sat in a corner, bundled together with string.

  Owl said, “We have to get out of here. They want to sell us to highwaymen.”

  Dusty’s face fell. “I thought, I thought they were just…” Her chest hitched. “I don’t know what I thought they were going to do, but… highwaymen?” She shook her head, voice cracking. “No. That can’t happen! Do you know what they would do to us? Oh, God, my baby. No.” She sank back, putting her hands over her face and sobbing.

  Owl clenched her jaw. “I won’t let that happen. I won’t, sis. We’ll find a way out of here or Gentlewave will come to the rescue. I bet right now he’s ready to sic Dorhn’li on all of them.”

  Dusty looked up, wiping her swollen eye. “Hey, yeah. Somebody let that guy off his leash. He’ll fill them full of arrows.”

  Jon’kin grinned, flashing his black teeth. “Maralti good a’ huntin’. Huntin’ Merriweath’r.”

  A gasp escaped Dusty and she put her hands over her mouth. “I just had an amazing idea! I can use Irina and blast them with bullets!”

  “How?” Owl said. “Where is the drone? Probably back in the woods somewhere, right? I always forget it’s even with us because it’s invisible all the time.”

  “No. It’s programmed to follow me wherever I go. It should know I’m in here. I bet it’s floating along beside the wagon right now and those dumbasses don’t even know it.”

  “If you shouted a command do you think it would hear you?”

  Tiny windows, a foot across and shielded with wooden bars, ran along the top of the wagon’s walls. Hazy clouds and a slice of evening light drifted by beyond.


  “I could try, but I don’t want to make the same mistake I did last time. Those bullets would go right through the walls and hit us,” Dusty said.

  Owl looked at the crates, boxes, and burlap sacks piled up around them. “Maybe we could insulate ourselves somehow? The tops and bottoms of these cages are solid metal. If we could tip them over, it would shield us.”

  “There’s too much junk in the way. And we don’t know which side of the wagon the drone is on. Maybe we can get out of the cages first and arrange things to protect us?”

  “Get out how, though?”

  Thick padlocks hung from the cage latches. Owl pushed on the barred door, but the structure was solid.

  Dusty pulled on the lock, craning her neck to see the front. “Would you believe this isn’t the first time I’ve been locked in a cage?”

  Owl raised her brows. “I’d love to hear that story.”

  “No you wouldn’t. But I escaped. I bet I can get out of here too.” She scanned the interior, her gaze settling on the box that had fallen on the floor. After pulling off her coat, she reached through the bars and snatched it. It didn’t fit between the cage bars, so Dusty overturned it, dumping ink pens, paper, wax seals, and envelopes onto the floor. Grabbing a pen, she inspected the metal nib, then stuck it in the keyhole of the padlock.

  Fiddling with the pen and lock for several minutes resulted in nothing but some choice swear words from Dusty. She threw the pen on the floor.

  Owl slumped in the cage. Her throbbing head made it so hard to think about anything, and when she did start to chew on their predicament and explore solutions, worry edged the thoughts out. When was the wagon going to stop? Would they be fed? Would Merriweather really sell them to highwaymen? Where were Gentlewave, Mothwing, and Dorhn’li? Could they pick up the wagon tracks and follow? They were heading farther and farther away from home and it was all for naught. If they escaped and if they found Gentlewave and if they made it back home, then what? They would still be back at square one, with Corvin and Sasha stuck in jail. Only now their ticket to freedom was dead.

  Owl wept into her hands. For her friends and family, for these kids, for those beautiful koyas that the stupid wolfmen had slaughtered like cattle on a farm. Only it was worse because they didn’t do it to eat—

  “Dusty,” Owl looked up, “do you know how to say ‘cow’ in Russian?”

  Dusty scrunched her face, the tines of a fork stuck in the keyhole of the padlock. “What? Cow?”

  “Yeah.”

  She took the bent fork out of the padlock and scratched her head. “I’m sure I know it. I have Russian practice with Sasha—just a little bit every day. He taught me all the animals, and always made up the stupidest sentences for me to memorize.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He does the dumbest stuff just to make me laugh. I miss him so much.”

  Owl frowned.

  Dusty pulled on her coat and wiped her eyes. “Why do you want to know ‘cow’ in Russian?”

  “You can command the drone to shoot specific things, right? I’m sure it doesn’t have a command for wolfmen, but I bet it knows what a cow is.”

  “You want to shoot a cow with the drone?”

  “Both of them. The ones pulling the wagon.”

  Dusty’s mouth parted as realization dawned on her face. “That would get their panties in a bunch, wouldn’t it? This wagon goes pretty slow, but maybe with the cows dead and the wagon just sitting in the road, it’ll delay that merchant’s plans. He’ll have to abandon all his stuff or find some more cows somewhere.”

  “I hate to kill a couple of innocent cows, but it might help us get out of here. And if Merriweather has to take us out of the cages and make us walk, maybe we can find a time to escape. So, do you know it?”

  Dusty furrowed her brow, lips pursed. After a moment, she thumped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I can’t remember! But I know I know it. I even remember what I was doing when Sasha taught it to me. Maybe if I walk myself through it…

  “I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I had a bunch of flowers and branches spread out on top. I was arranging them in a vase, trying to see what went best together. Sasha sat down. He was wearing a pink shirt and he’d just taken a shower. He smelled really good. He said, ‘you ready to practice your Russian, baby? I’m going to teach you some animal names.’”

  Dusty pressed her fingers to her temples and shut her eyes. “‘Is the animal’s name, ‘Sasha?’’

  ‘Ha ha, no, baby. You say this: loshad. That means horse. Loshadi ne yedyat yaytsa. Horses don’t eat eggs.’

  ‘What the hell kind of sentence is that? What’s a horse?’”

  The wagon hit a bump and conversation drifted from outside. Owl said, “Is this going somewhere?”

  “Quiet, Owl! I’m concentrating.” Dusty whispered, continuing her make-believe conversation.

  “‘Okay, baby, I teach you new sentence so you can say: my mom is not cow.’

  ‘What the? Sasha, why are you teaching me these weird sentences? I don’t even have a mom.’

  ‘C’mon, this is your practice for animals. My mom is not cow. Moya mama ne… Moya mama ne… korova!’” Dusty looked up. “Cow is korova!”

  The back doors of the wagon swung open and Merriweather stepped inside, stooping to keep from hitting his insufferable blond coiffe on the ceiling. Owl scowled as he shut the doors and sat cross-legged on the floor.

  “Hello, ladies. I thought I heard you talking. How we doing?”

  “How do you think we are, you dirt-licking charlatan cyclops?” Dusty spat. “Get a little closer to me. I’ll dig out your other eye with a rusty spoon.”

  Merriweather grinned and looked at Owl. “Boy, she’s got a mouth on her, huh?” He leaned back on his hands, the grip of his pistol poking out of his waistband. “Is the Islander the father of the baby?”

  Dusty huffed. “Go to Hell, slimeball. Like I’d tell you anything.”

  “You’re right. You like to talk but it’s not anything I want to hear.” He glanced at Owl. “So let me ask you, my scar-faced sister—”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “Is the Islander the father of the baby?”

  Owl narrowed her gaze. “If I don’t tell you, you going to hit me with your gun again?”

  “Nah. I don’t think that scares you that much. But hurting little miss Mouthy here does.” Merriweather’s hand shot into Dusty’s cage. He grabbed her by the coat and yanked; Dusty’s head clanged against the metal bars.

  “Dusty!”

  Dusty put her hands to her forehead, sucking air through her teeth. She squirmed and twisted in the merchant’s grip. He said, “Bite me, Mouthy, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”

  Merriweather turned back to Owl. “So? You gonna answer me or am I gonna have to do that again?”

  Owl’s lip quivered, but she kept her tears at bay, refusing to cry in front of this monster. “No. The Islander is not the father of the baby.”

  “Too bad. Unusual kids are worth way more in Hammerlink. Mouthy’s kinda plain-Jane. Think her kid will be too? What’s the father look like? Or does she even remember?”

  Owl’s nostrils flared. She didn’t want to say another word to this guy, especially with the way he was judging Dusty’s baby like a piece of merchandise, but she couldn’t risk him hurting her again. “He’s light-skinned. Scrawny. On the short side. Wavy black hair and a big nose… And more charisma than you could ever dream of having.”

  Dusty gave Owl a smile, rubbing the pink welt forming on her forehead.

  “Hmm. Not really the Adonis-type, huh?” He let go of Dusty’s coat. “Sorry toots, sounds like your baby’s not winning any genetic lottery. Guess we’ll keep heading for highwaymen territory instead.”

  Owl dug her nails into her fists. Should I have lied? Would it have been safer if Merriweather thought Gentlewave was the father? He would have taken us to Hammerlink then, instead of to highwaymen. I’m so stupid!

  Merriweather wagged a
finger in the air. “Unless… Do you think your Islander buddy would pay your ransom? Because I gotta tell you, the sooner we unload you gals and replace you with some tins, the better.”

  Owl scoffed. “If he tried to make an actual transaction with you, you just take his money and then shoot him.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. But you didn’t answer my question. Has he got much money? More than highwaymen would have?”

  Lie, Owl. Tell him what he wants to hear. Or would that put Gentlewave in too much danger?

  Merriweather reached for Dusty’s coat.

  “Yes!” Owl shouted, tears brimming in her eyes. “He has a lot of money. Please don’t hurt her!”

  He stood, swaying with the movement of the wagon. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Dusty pierced Merriweather with a defiant gaze as he opened the back doors. “Hey wolfman, do you know how to say ‘cow’ in Russian?”

  Merriweather looked back and frowned. “What?”

  Dusty craned her neck toward the little window above her cage and shouted. “Irina! Strelyat’ korovoy!”

  A chunk-chunk-chunk sounded from outside, followed by pain-filled bellows.

  Merriweather whipped his head around. “What the—”

  The wagon lurched and he fell out of the back. Boxes, bags, and crates rained down on the cages and floor. Bottles exploded, splattering them with hair tonic and glass. Ink pens, hard candies, salves, and costume jewelry bounced off the cage bars, the sounds muffling Dusty’s shouts. Owl’s stomach flipped as the wagon tipped over. Dusty’s cage clanged into hers. Owl’s head hit the ceiling, then she thumped back to the floor.

  She lay still, staring wide-eyed at Dusty and Jon’kin, their cage on top of hers. A yo-yo fell out of the piles of junk and rolled out the open wagon doors. The landscape beyond was sideways, chunks of wood and blood smears dirtying the road.

  “That was a bit more chaos than I was expecting. You two okay? Dusty, how’s the baby?”

  “I braced myself when I felt the wagon tipping. I’m okay.”

  “Ah’m too,” Jon’kin said. “Mebbe nah Merriweath’r, though. Ya think’s dead?”

  “I doubt it. Monsters don’t die that easily.” Owl paused. Footsteps thudded on asphalt outside, the sound receding into the distance. She kicked at her bent cage bars. “Sounds like they’re leaving. I think I’d run too if bullets came flying out of nowhere.” She kicked again and one of the bars broke free, clanging into a pile of bottles. Squeezing out of the gap was difficult, and the jagged edge of broken cage bar sliced into Owl’s side as she freed herself.