What an entitled fucker, thinks Blane. Arkin parading around the docks in his transparent burn coat that broadcasts his silly naval suits, polka dot handkerchiefs puffing from his pocket. Not to mention the black market Land Dominion cigars jutting from Arkin’s lips, as if he owned the entire wharf and every ship on it. Or how he bosses the workers around for blood sport, while never raising a hand to haul a bale on board or even utter a kind word.
Blane would love nothing more than to slug the asshat across the face and drag him up to the jails overhanging the dock, thrust him in a filthy cell and toss the key into the raging Pacific waters far below.
But Arkin with all his puffery is not the problem now. Blane’s green hive mind knows something else is quite amiss. His visioning is nowhere near as strong as Ruby’s, but ever since Ruby helped him transform with the magical red pollen Blane’s had the interior Sight.
He tries to calm his agonizing senses and use logic. It’s not that Ruby never ventures out at night. Sometimes she visits her patients, or takes the flycar to Caprice’s for a dinner and a reading of the divination cards. But Blane drove the flycar today, and Ruby’s left no note. Note. That word ignites sensate fire in him. The salon, it says. Why?
He dashes downstairs and looks under Ruby’s desk, where cartons of her products are still piled high. His heart racing, Blane sees one of her boxes has been thrown to the floor and it’s surrounded by broken glass. It’s not like Ruby to leave such disarray. He looks under her worktable and picks up a rumpled paper. He hopes it’s her note, telling him where she went. Yet he already knows it’s not from Ruby. His inner voice says: It’s a mistake someone made.
With shaking hands, Blane straightens out the paper and reads. No address or proper letterhead. Only:
RUBY (The seer)
ARKIN
RATBOY – prisoner #793
Ruby! Arkin? That’s it? No other clues? Blane examines the curious handwriting, wondering if anyone he knows writes this way. It’s in scratchy, childlike capital letters. Certainly not written by Ruby. Who then? And what is the list for? Is it a hit list? Blane refuses to even consider this. Who would want to kill Ruby?
He paces in the salon for a good half hour, rousing his green senses to high alert. Yet nothing. He calls for Ruby again, and searches the exterior of the property, beaming his flashlight in every crevice, under every cactus and behind each mound of sand.
Why is his boss’s name on the list and what does Arkin have to do with Ruby? Blane jumps in his flycar and sets off to the wharves for the second time in one day, holding out hope the bastard will be there and supply a lead.
***
“I told you, I didn’t write this list. How dare you come barging into my office after hours?” Arkin blows a noxious cloud of cigar smoke in Blane’s face.
Blane, seeing it coming, holds his breath. Breathes out as he shifts his head to the left. “Well, why would your name be on a list in my house?” Blane persists. He notes Arkin’s jacket is off and the tight white shirt underneath can’t hide his soft, pouchy gut. “Do you know any of the prisoners?” Blane cocks his head upward to indicate the jail.
“Now why would I hang out with the likes of criminals?” Arkin sneers and flicks a smoldering chunk of cigar ash on the floor by Blane’s boots.
Blane crushes it under his heel. “You tell me. Ever hire any of them to load cargo?”
Arkin snorts derisively. “When I have you legal bozos, why would I need cretins with rap sheets?”
For the hundredth time Blane thinks about quitting. He’s fond of working by the ocean though. It brings back memories of falling in love with Ruby, riding the Ocean Wheel when they were first out here in high school for the competition. But nothing’s worth suffering this pompous tool. Surely there’s other dock work. One more attempt to pry a nugget from the guy. “You want to tell me a little something before I smear your name all over these docks? Before I publicize what your real connection to Ratboy is?”
It’s a long shot but it hits a vital nerve because Arkin goes bonkers, leaping up, lunging for Blane, and even smashing his cigar out on the burnsuit fabric of Blane’s arm.
“I quit!” Blane yells before he punches out Arkin’s lights.
Blane steps over Arkin’s splayed body and stomps out to the docks. He blathers to any drunken sailor or longshoreman who will listen, “Who the hell is Ratboy? What’s he in for? What is Arkin’s connection to the guy? Someone tell me something!”
Two dockworkers hoist their beers his way but offer nothing. One man shakes his head and scuttles onto his rig. But a third guy in a battered blue burnsuit waves him over. “What do you want with Ratboy, man?” he inquires from his speaker helmet.
“I’m trying to find the guy. Can I get into the prison? Do they allow visitors? Do you know Ratboy? What’s he in for?”
The guy holds his hand up as if to shush Blane. Then he waves him on to an enclosure farther down the wharf, which leads to the prison lift. They remove their suit tops to converse more easily.
“Ratboy’s in for stealing lots of bales,” says the man. “But we think he’s in for much more because everyone steals bales, you know?” The guy chuckles, revealing rotted teeth. Secondary plague of the Hotzone—so many years of malnutrition and not enough doctors, even with things getting better, people are literally falling to pieces.
“Then what’s his real crime?”
The guy shrugs. “Ask him yourself. What’s it to you?”
“I found a note, with some strange information. My girlfriend may be in danger.” Blane senses he’s said too much. His anger and impatience still get him into trouble. Except if this guy knows how dire the situation is, maybe he’ll reveal more.
Blue Burnsuit says, “Seventh floor. Tell the guards you’re there to give Ratboy an urgent message from family. Usually gets you in fast. Tell him Sammy says hello.”
***
Blane sits across from Ratboy with only a thick glass separating them. Even though Blane works under the prison overhang, he’s never been up here and it’s freaking him out. No time to waste though. He aches with the certainty his lover is in mortal danger.
Ratboy is trim, lanky, with only one tattoo—the number 793 emblazoned inside the round Vegas-by-the-Sea prison tag. Surprising, thinks Blane, this guy looks almost effete with his salt and pepper hair combed back and his old-fashioned glasses perched on a handsomely sloped nose. Too intelligent to be in here. Blane wants to ask why they call him Ratboy, but there are more important things to inquire about. He holds the note against the glass. “Ever seen this?”
Ratboy shakes his head, has a question for Blane. “Who are you? They told me you were family, but you’re no relative.”
“I work down on the wharves.”
“Oh, hell, no, I’m not talking to you.” The guy wrinkles his face in disgust.
“You have a grudge against the longshoremen or what?”
“Get outta here.” Ratboy waves his hand dismissively, rises off his stool, clearly eager to be escorted back to his cell.
Think! Blane stresses silently, think, green man! He glances at the handwritten note again. Something about it has turned this guy against him. “I’m no friend of Arkin,” Blane insists, “if that’s what bothers you. In fact, he’s an arrogant jackass.” Luck is with Blane. Ratboy stops walking away and peers back over his shoulder.
“Who says Arkin’s anything to me?” Ratboy’s tone oozes resentment.
Blane feels it seep through his green veins. He’s on the right track. He just needs to keep prodding. Taking more calculated risks because Ruby’s wellbeing is at stake here. “A dockworker told me you were in for stealing bales, but he says everyone steals those. Did Arkin arrest you for that? If the creep nabbed me for something everyone does I’d stuff his stinking cigar down his throat. You with me?”
That does it. Ratboy takes three giant steps forward and once again he’s plastered against the glass, steaming it up with his enraged breaths. “I’d lik
e to murder the guy. Better yet, I’d like to be the prosecuting lawyer who locks him in solitary until maggots devour his rotted flesh.” Ratboy’s tone seethes with righteous injustice.
“That’s the spirit! What would you pop him on?”
The details come coursing out. “Arkin sold tainted Fireseed up north for an inflated price. Up in Ocean Dominion, where they supposedly have it all, they’re starving for Fireseed. Ironic, huh? No one wants that contaminated variety down here. We know it’s poison.”
“Poison?”
“Yeah, from the fields tainted with the old doctor’s genetic mess.”
“Varik. Yes, he died from growths before they devised safe varieties.”
“Arkin doesn’t give a good goddamn about making people sick. In fact, he laughs about poisoning the northerners, punishing them for the wall they put up.” Ratboy shrugs. “Sure, we all hate the wall. But to fire at all the soft targets for the few shits in charge? I call that mass murder.”
“So, you’re not in here for stealing bales?”
He snorts. “Not even close. I’m in for trying to stop Arkin’s intentional murder spree. I was going to squeal on him but he got to me first. Told folks I was criminally insane. Paid them money to keep me locked up and quiet.”
Blane nods, and with his heart galloping out of his chest he realizes as tragic as this is, Ruby’s still gone. “Do you know a woman named Ruby? Do you know why she might be on the list?”
“No, bud, sorry. Can’t help you with that.”
Blane needs to go home. Look for her again and follow more desperate leads. “Thanks, man.” Blane offers the guy a weak but heartfelt smile. “You did the right thing. I’ll spread word.”
Ratboy taps his hand on the glass. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Me, too.” Blane’s halfway to the exit when he turns and calls, “By the way, Sammy says hello.”
***
Merken transports them to Ruby’s in his flycar with Erzabet slumped over the back seat. This time, with no hood to keep Ruby in the dark she sees the location.
The tunnel must run hundreds of miles to the north.
She has to trust Merken won’t kill the person who saves his daughter. If Ruby even can.
By the time the surgeon Caprice recommended arrives, Ruby has spread a mattress on the salon table, clean sheets over every surface, and finished mixing a lethal potion she’s been reluctant to make in case it reaches the wrong hands—a powerful killer of Fireseed stalks. God forbid it gets out and destroys the crops it’s taken years to grow and feed the hungry masses.
Ruby bolts all the doors. Props a chair under each knob. Who knows? Anyone could’ve seen them come in. She thinks of Blane with a pang of longing. Wonders where he could be, hopes for his sake that he stays out drinking or clubbing. She’d hate to mix him up in this disaster and have his life threatened, too.
With Erzabet on the mattress, Merkin’s tubes in her veins and Ruby’s nerve deadening salve rubbed all over, the surgeon makes her scalpel cuts.
The diseased core is firmly grounded in Erzabet’s top left collarbone, so the bone gets extracted, as does one of Erzabet’s kidneys. The spine growing from her sinus is trimmed down to the trunk and the one on her cheek excised. In each open wound, Ruby places a spoonful of kill potion to keep the roots from sprouting anew. One of Erzabet’s hands is disfigured by petrified outgrowths, and has to go. This hurts Ruby a lot, but nowhere near as much as Erzabet is surely hurting.
And then, after the bandages are wound to protect the surgical seals, Ruby begins her real work. She rubs salve over Erzabet’s remaining limbs to hasten healing. From a vial of precious transforming powder Ruby extracts pinches, placing them under Erzabet’s tongue, inside her ears and far inside her one good nostril to sniff up with every weak breath. She rubs Erzabet’s feet with salve, too. This will seep in and speed healthy sap up Erzabet’s veins. Finally, Ruby lays hands over Erzabet and sings the incantations Caprice taught her.
Through all of this, Merken sits as patiently as a priest at a holiday service. Gone is the man who slapped Ruby, who cursed and yelled and flung a hood over her head to confuse her.
The surgeon promptly takes her leave, sneaking out the back door. It is not safe to be seen here. If anyone finds out who they’re giving sanctuary to, there will be hell to pay. Ruby is stuffing bloody rags in a bag to be burned when there’s a fierce, pounding on the door. Merken leaps up, a silver gun suddenly in hand.
“No!” Ruby runs boldly ahead of him and blocks his way, her arms spread wide. “Stop,” she says firmly. It might be my housemate.”
“No one can see us here,” Merken exclaims. “No one. You told me that yourself.”
“If it’s Blane, you can trust him. I guarantee it.”
Merken shoves the silver firearm in a hip pocket, but he’s already frantically packing machines and tubes in his briefcase and wheeling over the portable stretcher they crafted to move his daughter.
Ruby runs through the salon to the front door, where there’s another round of frantic banging. She peers out, making sure it’s not the sector cops. “It’s Blane!” she shouts back at Merken. Blane is still yelling outside for Ruby as she moves the chair aside, slides the bolt and flings open the door.
They crash into each other’s arms and kiss. “Ruby, where were you?” Blane asks, hugging her tightly. “I looked all over for you. You scared me out of my mind.”
Merken marches in the foyer, his gun cocked.
“Put that down,” Ruby orders. “He’s my boyfriend, I told you, he’s okay.”
Blane steps up to Merken, who is still aiming the gun at Blane’s gut. “Who the hell are you?” he demands to know.
Merken stands frozen, clearly wondering who to trust.
In one way or another, Ruby manages to explain it all to Blane without Merken taking a shot, without disturbing Erzabet, or tempting Blane to kill Merken. It’s a miracle, Ruby thinks, but how many more miracles will we be afforded tonight? She shudders as she glances over at Erzabet in the darkened parlor.
If Erzabet dies this will all be for nothing.
“Why were you out so late, Blane?” Ruby runs a finger along the cigar burn marring his suit.
“When I was looking for you I found this note under one of your tables and I had to do some scouting to figure out who wrote it, what it all meant.” Blane holds it up. Merken’s eyes widen when he sees it. “It’s yours, isn’t it?” Blane asks him.
“Yes.”
“It mentions Ruby, my boss, Arkin and Ratboy. Why?”
“I was searching for Ruby to find a cure for my daughter. And the other two men to unravel the source of Erzabet’s terrible infection.” He shrugs. “Rumors travel, no matter how tall or impenetrable a wall is.”
Blane nods somberly. “Well, your hunch was on the money. I visited Ratboy in prison. He’s in there on a false rap. Arkin paid people off to throw him there so he wouldn’t squeal. Ratboy was about to tell everyone Arkin sold tainted Fireseed to you northerners.”
“Where is this Arkin?” Merken shouts, again brandishing the silver weapon. “I’ll blow a hole through his brain. He poisoned my only daughter.”
In an eerie response to this, Erzabet groans. Ruby dashes into her room. Erzabet is still breathing, the machines beeping evenly. But Ruby feels a cold shadow glide over the both of them, like the fearsome specters of the prisoners shading the docks. Some malevolent force even darker than the twisted vines of disease is advancing. Ruby feels it with every pulse, every sensate breath. “We need to get you out of here, Merken Now! Help me move your daughter to the stretcher. Blane?”
***
Blane knows better than to question Ruby’s ferocious convictions. She’s the master seer, and what’s more, he feels it, too. A dreadful maelstrom is coming for them, like desert sandstorms, which blind and strangle.
Blane and Merken work together to lift Erzabet as gently as they can and place her on the stretcher. Wheel it to the
back door. Just outside is Merken’s flycar, under the protection of the colossal Gorgon Cacti.
They slide her off the stretcher and into the back of the vehicle. Merken hitches up her tubes and machines, readying for flight.
“Some salve.” Ruby hands Merken a vial. “For the burns on your face.” He thanks her and pockets it. Gives her a shy hug.
Blane watches Ruby lean into the flycar and whisper something to Erzabet. No doubt it’s one last healing incantation, which will hopefully pull Erzabet through the deep tunnel journey to the safety of Ocean Dominion.
For once, Blane has no desire to defect to Ocean Dominion. So many times, he dreamed of stowing away in some northbound vessel. But his lover is here, his life, and the Hotzone is fast becoming the sector with hope. Merken and his brethren are the unlucky ones now.
Ruby joins Blane as they watch the flycar. They wave to it before they hasten back inside the blue magic house. It’s a hazard to be seen communicating in any way with a northerner.
Surrounded by bags of gory rags in the salon, they wrap their arms around each other and sway, both feeling a rising dread.
***
Ruby senses the mob before she hears it. It only takes thirty minutes for them to crowd around the blue house. Have they come because of something Arkin said, or because of the surgeon who couldn’t keep her mouth shut? It almost doesn’t matter. They clamor for Ruby and Blane’s blood as they brandish torches.
“How dare you perform surgery on a criminal from Ocean Dominion!” someone shouts.
“Come out here and explain yourself, cowards!” yells another.
“Why should you help them when they refuse to help us?”
“Have you asked the northerners why they won’t tear down the wall?”
“Burn at the stake, witch!”
Ruby rests in the sanctuary of Blane’s arms. She’s so very tired. It drains her to go through such long healing sessions.
She pictures the tunnel location, cool and dark with sand-packed walls. She senses Merken and Erzabet have entered the tunnel. Sees Merken park the vehicle on the cavern floor and place something at the entrance, and then quickly leap back in the flycar and zoom farther inside the core, snaking toward the north.
Beyond Secret Worlds: Ten Stories of Paranormal Fantasy and Romance Page 8