Honey for the dreamers, to bring back a better time.
Honey for the hopeless, to remind them what’s been lost.
Honey for the gunners. May they never face the cost.
Smoke rises from the encampment like a flag to call the raiders home. I see it long before I hit the hill and see what they have done.
My drivers—my brave and brilliant girls, my bright and bonny boys—have managed to pull back the bikes, forming a tight circle around the truck. They’re braced behind the cover of their vehicles, shooting at the ring of unfamiliar bikes that now surrounds them. There are bodies in the no-man’s land between them, some of them shapes I recognize even without being able to see their faces. Poppy’s tattoo will never have time to heal. Daniel will never tell his girl he loves her again, or see his son grow up. Crystal’s husbands will mourn for her a thousand nights, taking what comfort they can from one another’s arms.
Others are unfamiliar, residents of this encampment, brought into danger by our presence.
Nijmi is not among the fallen. I take the time for a short and private prayer of thanks before turning my eyes to the attackers. There are only ten of them. They shouldn’t have been able to hit so hard, so fast, especially not with Poppy standing guard—
But there is Alan, standing among their number like he belongs there, and everything makes sense, and nothing will ever make sense again.
I should be careful. I should be cunning. I should retake what’s mine through stealth and treachery, even as it was taken from me.
I am Hope, of the California Beekeepers, riding southward through sun like honey, and my lover is dead in the dirt, and the daughter we took between us is in danger. This is not the time for care. This is the time to show them why I hold the position I do.
The headwoman reaches me, panting from the run. Her gasp is all I need to hear. I whirl, hand raised to shush her.
“Be still and be silent and know that I am sorry,” I hiss. “Now stay here.”
And I am away, I am running, moving with the tree line, keeping low, where I won’t be seen by the attackers, whose attention is all on the convoy. I pull the guns from my belt, and when I am close enough, I open fire, bullets like bees buzzing through the open air, and I am still moving, I am still moving, they cannot touch me, they cannot reach me, they will not hurt me. They cannot have my people. They cannot have my bees.
Three of them are down before they realize the game has changed. My surviving drivers cheer, and the gunfire intensifies. The attackers are fighting on two fronts now. They no longer know what to do, or where to aim. Alan is shouting. The noise obscures his words, but I hope he’s afraid; I hope he’s terrified.
No one aims for him, not even me. All my people know the punishment that waits for those who would endanger the hives.
It is over in minutes. The last of Alan’s backup falls, and he is alone, gun in shaking hands, surrounded by people who would be thrilled to pull the final trigger. I do not walk toward him. I saunter, allowing my hips to roll, allowing my hands to dangle. He is no threat to me now. I know that, and so should he.
He does. “Please, Hope,” he says. “It isn’t what it looks like, it isn’t—”
“He called them as soon as you were gone,” says Nijmi. “On his walkie, he called them.”
“They said he promised them the honey, and the survivors of the raid, and one of the hives,” says Michael. There’s a bleeding gash on his arm, a sign of a bullet that passed too close and barely missed its mark. His lip twists in a snarl. “One of the hives,” he repeats, in case I missed it the first time.
I did not miss it. I turn to Alan. “Well?” I ask.
He knows he’s lost. He stands a little straighter, and spits in my face.
I do not wipe it away.
“We could be kings,” he says. “We could rule this state. We could have anything, and you won’t even let us demand our fair share of the harvest.”
“Your idea of ‘fair share’ is everything,” I say, mildly.
“Why shouldn’t it be? There wouldn’t be a harvest without us!”
“That’s the thinking of the world before the drought,” I say, and raise my pistol, aiming between his eyes. “You are no longer a Keeper. You are no longer welcome in the company of our bees.”
The gun speaks once. Alan does not speak again.
He only falls.
Honey for the table, that we all be safe, and fed;
Honey for the sleepless, let them sink into their bed.
Honey for the Keepers, for the price they all must pay,
Honey for the bees, my love. They’ll fly again someday.
We pull out of the encampment two days later, after we have buried our dead in the soil beyond their orchard, where the ground yields easily to the shovel. We have left the dead with honey on their lips and we have left the living with a promise: we will be back next year, and we will let our bees fly free, to pollinate their crops. They fought with us, not against us, and the memory of those who tend the hives is long. We will remember our friends.
Two of their adolescents ride with us of their own free will, one to learn a gunner’s trade, one to learn the engines. Sometimes the only way out is forward, into the unknown.
Sunlight like honey on the I-5, and Nijmi riding shotgun, her eyes on the horizon, scanning for trouble. We are rolling again, rolling into the desert and the patchy green, rolling into the future, riding ever southward, in the company of bees.
SHE TORE
NISI SHAWL
WENDY DROVE FAST. SHE TORE through the spring night like the howl of a wolf. Damp, misty air blew in through the Invicta S-Type’s open windows, making a mess of her normally tidy crown of braids.
In the passenger seat, Tink scowled and rubbed her bare shoulders. “Are you sure we shouldn’t stop and take the top down?” she asked sarcastically. “I can still feel my wings.”
“No time.” The crossroad loomed ahead. Wendy signaled her turn even though there was no one in sight. She wasn’t going to get stopped, ticketed for an avoidable infraction. Fast and legal—that was how she handled motors on or off the racetrack. She slowed as little as possible and spun the steering wheel. Tires screeched as she sped up again coming around the corner. “Lily’s note said dawn.”
“Do you even know where we are? How long will it take to get—”
“Shut up.” Peter had been always been rude to Tink, and Wendy was, too. Politeness never made any difference in the fairy’s own manners.
“Well fuck me with a pry bar. I was only asking. And if you’re in such a rush, why poke along on the ground like this when we could fly?”
Illustration by NICOLÁS R. GIACONDINO
For answer, Wendy removed one gauntleted hand from the wheel to lift the submachine gun tucked between her and the door, tilting its elegant muzzle to the windscreen. “Weighs something,” she said. “Plus we’ll want plenty of ammo.” She lowered the gun back down, point made.
Never mind that flying terrified her.
At a bend in the road Wendy turned the car’s nose northeastward. The fading lights of the British city of Boston disappeared from the rearview. She twisted the knob, brightening the Invicta’s headlamps. One more jog to navigate. She took it at cruising speed: 40 miles per hour. Then the way ahead stretched flat and straight, a Roman rule dividing black fenlands on either side. Gradually the faint glow of the lights of Skegness climbed up from what must be the horizon. She checked the dash’s chronometer. Two hours till sunrise. They were just on time.
Tink had been suspiciously quiet for far too long. Wendy spared a glance from the road and saw by the instrument panel that the fairy’s blond head drooped to the passenger seat’s far side. A low snore confirmed that she slept. Effectively immortal, Tink fought off aging with the magic of dreams. When she wasn’t busy stirring up trouble, she tended to drowse away like a human-sized cat.
Not Wendy. She looked every bit of her thirty-five years. Wendy was one of th
ose who enjoyed growing up.
Now she steered the Invicta through Skegness’s streets, avoiding as well as she could the traffic caused by the market at its center. But the car’s interior was nonetheless flooded with the cries of vendors, the sweet scent of milk from grass-fed cows, the soft clop of horses hauling wagons filled with the last of the winter’s root vegetables, the chatter of ice poured into tubs and barrels, the blood-and-salt-and-iodine smell of the morning’s catch. A Londoner born and bred, Wendy found the village market’s atmosphere strangely familiar. For how many centuries had these folk gone about their bucolic business, striking bargains in tongues rooted in the ancient shifts of tides and time? Telling stories immemorial—
“What a stench!” Tink had wakened.
“We’ll soon be away from it.” And indeed they’d come at last to the village’s outskirts. Soon the road reduced in size. One lane only. For fear of crashing into a vehicle headed the opposite direction, Wendy couldn’t urge the Invicta on with the quickness she’d anticipated. They were going to be late.
“Throw us a map up, Tink.”
The fairy gave an ill-natured sigh. “I asked if you knew where we were.”
“I do. But there may be better routes to the spot Lily’s expecting us to show at.”
“May not.”
The windscreen stayed stubbornly dark. A greenish glimmer in the corner of Wendy’s eye proved to be nothing more than Tink’s wings half unfurling, only to settle back again into the semblance of a fashionably spangled wrap.
“There’s a thimble in it for you.” Wendy said this as carelessly as she could. Her reward spread across the screen’s glass like colored dew sparkling in an unseen sun. On one side, the map’s sea shone a transparent, purplish blue; the road beneath their tires was represented by a thin stream of crimson slanting right. A miniature mango-yellow Invicta crept upwards along it. A clear brown reminiscent of ginger beer filled the rest of the display.
“Thank you. Any footpaths?” Scrawls of white appeared; several of these tangles ended at an undeviatingly straight section of the red line along which they proceeded, further up. Another remnant of the Romans, that would be: a stretch of road laid out as if drawn on the Earth with a protractor.
Lily’s note said they should meet precisely at that stretch’s midpoint.
“We won’t be able to drive on any of those,” Wendy said.
“Then why’d you ask me to put them on?” The paths began to vanish.
“No! Tink, don’t, please—” The road relaxed its kinks, and she accelerated a touch. “We’ll have to walk at the last anyway—to keep from scaring the kidnappers off with too much noise.”
“Walk—not fly? You want me to walk in these?” Tink pointed one limber leg toward the Invicta’s roof. A delicate slipper dangled from her small pink foot. “Silly girl!” But the promise of a thimble had sweetened her normally acid tone of voice.
“Take them off, then.” Wendy focused on matching the map up with what she saw of the road. The straightaway’s exact midpoint should be roughly a hundred meters on—but the shortest of the footpaths they needed to take started—here. Wendy swung the Invicta to the shoulder, cursing softly as the sandy soil dragged them askew.
An unwelcome beam of newly-risen sun bounced off the chromed radiator cap. Dawn.
Why couldn’t it still be dark?
She switched off the ignition, opened her door, grabbed the gun, and climbed free of the car seat. Scraggly, starkly backlit wild plants scratched her shins. Golden light stabbed out of the clouds in the east, dazzling her. She lifted one gloved hand to shade her eyes and could barely see back to where the plants thinned to nothing. She’d overshot her mark—only by a bit, though.
She peered in through the Invicta’s open window at the fairy feigning sleep. “Up and at ’em, Tink.”
Black eyes snapped open accusingly. “You were supposed to thimble me awake!”
“Sorry. Other fish to fry.” Wendy winced inwardly at confessing her distraction. Tink’s jealousy of Lily might easily have kept her from going with Wendy on this rescue mission—if she’d been willing to admit to it. To placate her, Wendy offered the fairy a helping hand out. Which Tink stubbornly ignored, spreading her shining, shawl-like wings and flying ostentatiously through the cranked-down window. A neat trick, Wendy had to admit, unfurling the whole of that yardage inside the car. She smiled, then pursed her lips and leaned forward to plant a thorough thimble with them on the sensitive crown of the fairy’s head.
Not that you needed wings to fly. Tiger Lily had no doubt assumed they’d make an aerial entrance. In the darkness. If only—
Heavy grey overcast obscured the rising sun. Too much visibility for flying regardless of whether or not she had the courage. Wendy released her hold on the fairy’s naked upper arm to sling on a couple of belts of ammo. Then, hefting her weapon, she trudged resolutely toward Lily’s rendezvous.
THREE OF THEM. BLUE IN the dimness, Lily’s captors stood on the edge of a shallow depression in half-grassed sand. Give them credit for facing the right direction at least: the one they’d expect her come from.
Down in the depression’s center, Tiger Lily did their best to lure the three into looking their way. “Heyyyy, you wanna find out how good my pussy feels? My mouth and my ass too? I got a special hole for each and every one of ya.” Lily’s normally husky voice—the only thing about them that never shifted with their shape or gender—trembled with what probably sounded to the men surrounding them like longing. More like laughter to Wendy’s ears. No change in tone or register as Wendy lifted her arm and waved a signal from the surf-wet sands at the thugs’ backs.
Didn’t these men know Lily wouldn’t be here unless they wanted to be? The chains linking the shapeshifter’s hands together behind their back were useless. Lily could turn to a snake and slither armlessly out of them. Could be anything, become anyone, including who they appeared to be now: an “exotic” “Red Indian” woman—a favorite manifestation—waiting hopelessly to be ransomed by her rich white friends.
Chilly seawater lapped against Wendy’s knees. She rose to a crouch, hoping her silhouette resembled a rock’s. Green glittered in the air to her left where Tink flew in circles, speeding faster than the human eye could follow. Motioning with the gun for Lily to flatten themself on the scrubby sand, Wendy took aim at the furthest man’s back and fired.
Her darling SK kicked at her heart once, twice, then settled into an even purr as her bullets ripped into the unsuspecting kidnappers. Waiting only a moment for their screams and groans to subside, Wendy ran to Lily’s side.
Already the “Indian” had slipped their bonds. “Ta for coming. I was gettin’ right bored.”
Quick hugs and thimbles to each other’s cheeks were all the greeting circumstances allowed. The two headed inland. “Why’d you wait for me then?” Wendy asked.
“Seemed best to get you onsite. These fellows have been thinking they’re going to wreck the coastline, build a great big, sewage-spewing holiday camp here.”
“And?” Wendy gave the dead bodies a brief glance as they passed between them. “Not much of a threat if you ask me. Not this adventure.” Maybe next time they’d have a bit more success.
“Ah. But how’d they know I was spying on ’em, like? How’d they come to try kidnapping me? Someone smart’s behind this one.”
“Someone like—” Suddenly Wendy realized there was an important absence in the air.
“Lookit the business card they gave me when they thought I was an investor.” Lily pulled a white pasteboard rectangle from an obscure pocket and thrust it at Wendy—but Wendy barely noticed it. She whirled on her heels, searching wildly for even the faintest gleam of Tink’s green glow.
“What?”
“Where’d she go?” Guilt at robbing Peter of the fairy’s fidelity—such as it was—pricked at Wendy’s mind like midge bites. “Where’s Tink?” A question no sooner asked than answered. A patch of jade-colored light shimmered above
the water’s edge—which was nearer now than before, with the tide coming in. Wendy reversed course.
Lily followed. Wendy wondered if the shapeshifter’s presence would exacerbate Tink’s moodiness—if moodiness was the problem. She slowed to consider that. The fairy had a way of becoming scarce when trouble threatened.
“See?” The pasteboard rectangle reappeared. Wendy took it and peered at it, but the early gloom defeated her attempt at reading the card’s tiny type on the go. “It’s for ‘Smee & Assoc.’” Lily explained.
“Hook!”
“Right! And if he’s involved, no telling what this story is really about. Don’t you want to know?”
But they’d reached the first curling breakers. Wendy waded out—Tink’s shining had drifted further away—or perhaps stayed stationary while the tide rose? So swiftly, though? Sand and salt water dragged at her custom cordovans. She should have shed them. She hesitated and her feet sank deeper. The swirl of the sea on her calves felt like cold hands.
Because it was cold hands. Hands pale as foam emerged from the wine-dark combers to wrap around her legs and tug at her twill skirt; muscular arms embraced her hips and waist and clasped her to broad and pearl-like bosoms. Wendy fought, but the mermaids were too many. Waves filled her mouth when she opened it to cry for Lily’s help. The scene was all too reminiscent, though the pain a great deal less. As Wendy was forced beneath the surging surface of the icy April ocean she pressed her lips tight again but kept her eyes angrily open, glaring into the mermaids’ mad grins. She breathed out, then in, choking. Black defeat swallowed her.
WENDY WOKE PUKING AND SHIVERING. A puddle of bile tilted and ran back and forth as the smooth boards beneath her face rocked. So it wasn’t just nausea making everything move about. She must be aboard a ship. The flame in the lantern on the table where her head lay burned upright, though the candlestick itself heaved about under it mercilessly—
“Ah. Awake enough to vomit, I see. Very good.” That rich, dark baritone, like licorice soaked in honey, belonged, she was sure, to only one man: the captain of the Jolly Roger. Wendy attempted to push herself upright so she could see him and verify that. Her arms wouldn’t obey. She shoved with her neck and shoulders.
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