by Alex Wells
“Good morning.” The sound, so soft and innocuous, filled her ears, echoed and re-echoed until she could hear nothing else, so loud that it split her head open.
* * *
Hob fell like a rag doll and jerked against the dusty ground, slamming her head against a rock. Freki cursed and threw himself on top of her as she rolled toward the cliff edge. The barrel of her revolver made a burning line into his side. She slammed her head into a rock again, a small scream escaping her mouth before Raff clapped his hand over the sound. Raff cursed a bare second later, yanking his hand away, smeared with blood.
“Hob? Hob!” Freki hissed. He caught one look into her eye, gone wide and wild and bestial, and knew that she wasn’t going to answer. Freki slapped his hand over Hob’s mouth to hold in the next scream, and he didn’t do more than grimace as her teeth sank deep into the flesh at the base of his thumb. He kept his hand there, pinched her nose shut with his thumb and just held on as she jerked against him, movements becoming more and more sluggish.
When she went still, he pulled his hand free, leaning down to make sure she still breathed. Air tickled past his ear: good enough. “Check what’s goin’ on in the town,” he snarled at Raff, then crawled away from the edge, dragging Hob behind him.
Blood welled from under her eyelid, flowed from both her ears, from the cut on the back of her head. He crawled a good distance from the edge of the butte, dragging her one-armed, and then picked her up, slinging her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing.
“Somethin’s goin’ on, Freki. Like a fuckin’ anthill down there.”
“No fuckin’ shit. We’re goin’. Throw the net over your bike. Take mine, it’s better.” He didn’t wait to see Raff follow the order; he ran over to Hob’s motorcycle, the best out of the bunch, stuck her on in front of him. She was way too tall to be manhandled that way, floppy arms and legs everywhere they didn’t need to be. Cursing a blue streak, he got her propped over the battery stack, arms folded up enough that he could hold her in place, then revved the engine and burned ass for the trail down. He pointed them for the nearest canyon; it was in the wrong direction, but that’d be a place to lose anyone who might try to follow, leaving no tracks.
A steady trail of blood ran down from Hob’s head, dripping slowly off the battery stack as they went.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Back in the airconditioned comfort of the train car, Shige sat with Mr Green, who rocked slowly back and forth, humming a quiet tune to himself with his ruined voice. The Weatherman seemed quite satisfied: two “witchy” people had been captured in Shimera, and a search party sent up to a nearby butte at his near-hysterical insistence. Mr Green had wanted to go himself, but the security supervisor who had come with them put his foot down. The Weatherman was not to leave the confines of the synthcrete pad, not with unknown risks out in the sands.
The search party was the reason they were still in Shimera, minutes clicking steadily by as they fell further and further behind schedule. Shige read over his notes, trying to think if there was any detail he’d missed. Ms Meetchim would want to hear all about the incident in her morning briefing.
The door slid open, revealing the security supervisor, now red faced and sporting a sheen of sweat. Shige rose to his feet. “Had any luck?”
“We didn’t find anyone, but someone was there all right. Our dog found blood.”
Shige nodded. “Probably a refugee or two from Shimera, trying to hide from the hunt. Even if they’ve escaped for now, I don’t think they’ll do that well in the desert.”
“I’ve ordered the town shut in for a day, so no one can go try to help them out on the sly.” The train car shuddered, and the supervisor caught himself lightly on the doorframe as they pulled from the station. “Don’t know if it was just miners trying to pull a fast one, though. There was a motorcycle abandoned at the top of the butte, and tracks for two more, headed straight for the nearest stretch of hardpan. Found this, too.” He pulled a scope, the sort that came off a high-powered rifle, from his pocket and handed it to Shige.
Shige held it up to his eye; one lens was cracked, and he could tell the others in the scope were out of alignment. “It’s broken.”
“Broken or not, I don’t see why a miner would be running around with it.”
Shige rolled the scope in his fingers. He found a rough spot on the side and inspected it more closely. “Something has been filed off here. It could be stolen company property.”
The supervisor took the scope back. “Ah, I see it now. Might not be stolen property in that case. When we send our boys out to infiltrate with bandits, we remove the identifying marks ourselves.” He tucked the scope away again. “I’ll check and see if we’ve had people in that area lately. Sure as hell makes more sense than those townies growing some balls.”
“Let me know what you find. I’ll need to include it in my report to the vice president.” Shige nodded when the supervisor saluted, and headed into the next car. He found it amusing that the supervisor was so eager to pick out the most innocuous explanation. Prejudices worked strangely that way. Personally, he doubted just as much that it had been someone from Shimera. He had his own working theories.
Mr Green smiled beatifically at him when he sat, pausing in his singing and rocking to ask, “Did they find the fire, Mr Rolland?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr Green. It had already gone out by the time they got to the butte. But well done today. You think quite quickly.” Shige looked down at his notes, at his own notation about fire. Indeed, he had his own theories, ones involving that mad Ravani woman, and those would most definitely not be included in his report.
* * *
Freki waited for his brother in Hob’s office when Geri and Conall came rolling in twenty-four hours late, irritatingly well rested and well fed. Freki had taken up station behind her desk, supply lists, flimsy sheets covered with neat lines of calculations, and maps surrounding him. He fixed Geri with bloodshot eyes. “Where the fuck’ve you been?”
“They locked down the town for a full twenty-four hours after the Weatherman left.” Geri sat on the hard metal chair in front of the desk. “The fuck happened with you guys? Saw a bunch of guards burnin’ ass to the gates and heading toward the butte, but weren’t nothin’ we could do.”
“Weatherman did somethin’ to Hob. Dunno what. Had some kind of fuckin’ seizure and ain’t come out of it yet.”
Geri whistled low. “Who’s been in charge, then?”
Freki frowned, not liking how fast that question came out. “Me. Worked out how much blast we’ll need to derail the train. Sent men out to Rouse and Ludlow, see what’s what with their shipments.”
“What if she don’t wake up?”
“Closed topic.”
“You better start thinkin’ on it, though. If she’s been out for a day…”
Freki slammed his pencil down. “You my brother, or an eagle?”
Geri folded his hands over his belly. “You know I got a point.”
“Yeah, I know.” Freki sighed, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. “If she’s still out when Dambala gets back with Coyote, gonna see what they think of the situation.”
“Dambala an’ Coyote ain’t interested in leadin’.”
“And you’re too damn interested in it for anyone’s good.”
Geri’s face twisted a little. “What the hell do you know?”
He smiled. “About you? More’n I ought.” That got Geri to laugh at least, then someone knocked on the office door. Freki stared at the door, lips closing firm out of habit.
After a pause, another knock, Geri answered: “Enter.” He rolled his eyes at Freki. “See, this is why this job ain’t for you. You don’t like talkin’ to anyone but me.”
Freki snorted, fitting sometimes I don’t even fucking like talking to you into the sound neatly.
Davey poked his head in. “Someone’s here. Wants to talk to Hob.”
“Someone?” Geri tilted his head to the side. “Ain’t
any someones that should even know where to find us.”
“Didn’t give no name. Just this.” He held out a scrap of cloth. Geri passed it to Freki with a nasty little grin. Freki unrolled the cloth, revealing a knuckle bone.
“Shit,” Geri muttered.
“Let him in. Give him whatever he wants,” Freki said.
As soon as Davey closed the door, Geri leaned forward in his chair. “You don’t think it’s that same guy. You can’t.”
They’d both been with Hob a decade ago when they’d gone to see the supposed statue in the cave, the one that had turned into a living breathing man. They’d both seen him, clear as day, walk out across the dunes and vanish when they’d been trying to bury the company man and preacher they’d killed to protect him – a damn statue. Freki stood, looked out the window. He twitched the curtain aside so his brother could see the pale man coming in through the gate, looking like he hadn’t aged a day. “Don’t rightly matter what I think.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Then
* * *
As she turns the corner on the second floor, someone reaches from the darkened hall, long arm wrapping around her throat. A thin hand covered with a worn, familiar glove catches her wrist, fingers pressing bruises into her skin as she tries to whip up the knife that comes to her hand.
“Quiet now, girly,” Nick whispers into her ear. “Or I might just gut you with your own knife.”
His tone chills her blood, prickles all the hair up on her skin. He will kill her if she struggles. She freezes.
Nick twists the knife from her hand and lets go. She throws herself back, running her shoulders into the wall, pressing her hands against it.
“I gave you two rules,” he says his quiet words venomous. “Two simple goddamn rules, and you agreed to them, you lying little bitch.”
She feels lightheaded, frozen, unable to speak or move. It’s a nightmare, a hallucination. How is Nick home and no one else?
As if he read her mind, he says, “Got news of what you done, and I come home early. And god help me if he exists, ’cause I left everyone else to do the job. I wanted to give you a fuckin’ chance.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispers. She’s afraid to raise her voice more than that, in case Jeb, waiting in her room and naked as the day he was born, hears, in case Nick takes it as reason to slit her throat.
“You brung someone here. Even after I told you not to,” he hisses. “And you want to know why? Lookin’ at me with those goddamn innocent eyes of yours, you fuckin’ idiot?” He opens his hand; there are five little silver buttons on his palm, all blackened and twisted.
“What are those?”
“Short range transmitters. And all of them in a trail from Rouse to our fuckin’ doorstep.”
She shakes her head. “Can’t be true.”
“You goin’ to be stupid along with bein’ a damned liar?”
Everything hurts: her eyes, her throat, her heart, her brain. “He loves me,” she whispers.
“Mayhap he’s an idiot too.” Nick stuffs the transmitters into her breast pocket, then grabs her hand and shoves the knife back in it, wrapping her fingers around the hilt. He squeezes hard, twice, before she can make her fingers work.
She shakes her head, trying to push the knife back at him, because it’s impossible, it’s impossible, she’s bleeding out without a cut in her skin.
“You done this. If you’d just fuckin’ listened to me, you could’ve had your little boy toy, and kept him at a safe distance until you got bored with him, or really fuckin’ lost your shit and married him. But you chose this road. This is your mistake. And you’re gonna damn well fix it.” He grabs her shoulder with a bruising grip, shaking her. “Look at me, goddammit!”
She tries, but his face is a pale blur, an unsteady wash of color that won’t hold still. A strange, low moan comes from her throat.
“Don’t you put this decision on me.” Suddenly he just sounds tired and old, talking though a throat gone rusty. “I already killed too much of what I loved.”
There is a horrible, ageless truth in his voice. Jeb will die no matter what tonight. She has no illusions that she’ll be able to fight Old Nick, and no desire to even try on account of someone who has betrayed her. Because she believes Nick. He’s a liar, and a cheat, and a nasty piece of work, but he’s never betrayed her. Even when everyone else has.
The choice is horrible, and simple, and she made it long ago even if she hadn’t known at the time.
Hob forces herself to suck in two breaths, and nods. Head light and far away, she turns and walks back up the stairs, feet not making a sound even on the creaky boards. Some memory from Makaya’s thorough training has her holding the knife angled behind her back, so Jeb, her beautiful, dark-haired boy, won’t see it until it’s too late.
She pushes the door of her room open.
Jeb sits up in bed, gives her a broad smile. The expression fades away to nothing as he takes in her pale face, the way her shoulders shake. “You all right, Hob? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…”
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out one of the transmitters, holds it up to the light. It would be easier, if he’d beg or rage or try to tell her his innocence. But in his wide, dark eyes, she finds only guilt and resignation, like he’s a thief who’s been caught with his hand in someone’s pocket.
She walks over to him, runs her hand through his hair. His eyelids flutter, his face relaxing like he takes it as a sign that everything was all right, and he opens his mouth to tell her that he loves her.
Her hands know what Makaya the Debt Keeper taught her, the one tightening to iron in his curly hair, yanking his head back. And with the other she cuts off those words, those lies, before they make it out of his throat.
And the blood sprays a hot line, sprays and sprays and spraysprayssprays
Until the roof tears off her little attic room and she looks up, up into the endless blue. It’s a blur with the tears streaming from her eye. Distractedly, she wipes her cheek with a hot, wet hand, leaves behind a smear something far thicker than water.
The sky bursts with fire, arcs stretching, feathering, flying. Phoenix. The phoenix, her phoenix. It opens its beak, and she opens her arms to it. Because if it’s to be more fire, maybe this time she’ll just burn.
Instead, feathers touch her cheeks like a caress and the phoenix whispers in a surprisingly gentle voice, “The past is the past, dear one. Return. Wake. Live.”
* * *
She tried to open her eye, but it was gummed shut. Her head pounded in time with her heartbeat; it felt like someone opened up the back of her skull with a hammer and no chisel. Cool lines against her cheeks – soft skin, fingers, and she felt breath brush against her lips, could almost feel those lips hovering over hers. And she wanted it. For one aching, horrible moment she wanted to wrap her fingers in his shirt – well-worn cotton, bone buttons, she could feel it, knew it, smelled him – and pull him closer, lose all that pain in a different way, in happiness at that son of a bitch being alive, or her being alive too.
But she remembered the heated spray of blood across her face, going tacky on her fingers, and swallowed back a retch. Her hand found the smooth butt of one revolver. She pulled it quietly from the holster, and pressed the muzzle against the side of the man leaning over her.
“Gettin’ a little too close for comfort,” she growled. Her throat felt scratchy and ached with each word.
“You needn’t be so touchy, dearest.”
She kept the firm pressure up on the revolver until she felt him move back, his fingers slipping away from her face. Then she used her other hand to rub at her eye until her lashes unstuck and she could blink. Remnants of gummy black blood crumbled between her fingers.
And there stood the Bone Collector, exactly the same as when she’d last seen him. She rubbed lightly at her cheek and sat up. The room was familiar; the sick room at the base. She was in the same bed Old Nick had died in, like a cosmi
c joke. She felt too damned rotten to be dead. “What’re you doin’ here?”
“You called me with blood.”
She snorted, then gently probed at the back of her head with one hand. Her fingers found stitches. “Didn’t work the last two times I tried to do that.”
“You used a lot more blood this time.” He looked pointedly down at the gun still pressed against his side.
“You should be more careful about how you wake a body up. Some folk get mighty sensitive about it.” She tucked the revolver away. “You been sick?” She swung her legs around, planted her feet on the floor. She wasn’t ready to stand, not yet, with her head feeling so wobbly, but just having her feet firm made her feel better.
“There was something I needed to do.”
“Hope it was worth it. ’Cause while you were gone, company’s gone through four towns.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her eye for a moment. “Five, even. Thought you woulda cared about that, the way you talk such a big game.” She reached over to slap at his arm, noticed too late how his expression had frozen.
Then he had her by the shirt, fabric balled up in his fist, and yanked her from the bed like she weighed nothing, pinned her against the wall. “Have a care what you say,” he hissed, eyes blazing. “I am not your flunky.”
Fear surged into her throat, made her mouth sour. One hand went for her revolver again, instinct moving her fingers, but she tensed, stopped herself before she drew. Shooting wasn’t going to do anything but cause anger and regrets. A flash of blue, peeking from his shirt cuff, caught her eye. She pushed his sleeve back to reveal blue in a fine line up his arm as far as she could see, hard under her fingertips. That line, like a vein turned to diamond, hummed when she touched it, made the fire roar up in her blood just like–