“Aye, and I said it could’ve been a trap,” Marouska says, ambling forward. Sajo steps out of her way. “And now that’s what it looks like—with that broadcast you started to pick up.”
“We don’t know what the broadcast was. Could’ve been anything,” Three says. “Didn’t sound like a capture announcement.”
“But it could be a trap,” Marouska argues, turning to Rahn. “But you didn’t listen to me, did you?”
I focus on her. “An Untamed woman and child?”
And Nico was out by Ninth Rock? But he barely leaves the village. Why was he out there? A lump forms in my throat.
“Nico heard the baby cryin’.”
“They were supposed to pick ’em up. Bring ’em back here.” Marouska folds her arms. “And that was ages ago—it don’t take that long to get to Ninth Rock, not in a truck. I’m tellin’ you, that was a trap—and that was ’em Enhanced announcin’ their latest captives.”
“But Katya went with them. She’d have known if it was a trap,” Rahn says. “She’d have warned them.” But there’s something malicious about his tone, as if part of him is glad if they’ve walked into trouble because that discredits our Seer.
When I first arrived, the prejudice that Rahn has for his group’s Seer shocked me. At D’Elinous, Caia-Lu was practically worshipped—even after she became inactive. Anyone who’s been chosen to access the Dream Land is important. The Untamed cannot survive without Seers. We need those visions of the immediate future, of conversion attacks.
Rahn snarls at Three. “This is exactly why you need to make some two-way radios. So we can send and receive—”
“Well, maybe Corin shouldn’t have broken the ones we did have. Making them isn’t going to easy.”
“Be easier to steal some walkie-talkies,” Esther says, and Three shoots her a grateful look.
“Easier?” Rahn roars. “When they keep them locked up under high security?”
“They do the same with guns, and we still get them,” Three points out.
Rahn spits at the ground, and the greedy, orange earth swallows up his saliva. “Guns are essential. We can’t make new guns. But you can make radios. And you need to do better than these flimsy foxholes that barely work.”
I breathe deeply. “Look—this is pointless. We need to concentrate on our people.” Out of the corner of my eye, I’m aware of the dagger-look Five shoots at me. “How many weapons have they got out there—at Ninth Rock?” I look at Esther, then the others.
“All but the ones we’ve got.”
“So, a few then. Well, they should be able to handle themselves,” Elf says slowly. “They took ammunition too?”
“Of course,” Rahn says.
Sajo nods. “I finished casting new ones last night. They took plenty.”
Elf folds his arms. “Well, they’ll be fine. Six of them. And they’re not stupid. They’re not going to walk into a conversion attack.”
I breathe deeply. I know Rahn’s group is stronger than my old group. And the Nbutai group takes more precautions. My group lived in the same place for sixty years—we thought we were safe. Since I joined Rahn’s group, we’ve always been at Nbutai, but I heard him saying we should move the group again soon. A precaution, he said. I’ve been here ten years, but they’ve been at Nbutai for twelve. We can’t afford to take risks.
“Well, why ain’t they back?” Rahn asks. “Did they take a radio, Three?”
“Yes.”
“But that wouldn’t help ’em,” Marouska points out. “The Enhanced don’t broadcast the areas they’ll be searchin’, not when they know we hack into their waves. And, if they’ve been caught, they’re hardly goin’ to be listenin’ to the broadcast about their own capture.”
I point at one of the remaining trucks. “We need to go after them. We need to go now. You don’t know what that broadcast was, and we don’t know why they’re late. I say we take a team up to Ninth Rock. Could be another reason they’re late back. Flat tire?”
“But if it’s a trap—”
“Then we’ll rescue them. We always rescue our people.”
You didn’t rescue your parents though. You let those Enhanced women convert them, and you didn’t go after them.
But that’s why we have to do something now. And I focus on that. I couldn’t go after my parents. Elf, Bea, Mila, and I were on the run; if we’d tried to stop their conversion, we’d have been caught too.
Would you? Even though you killed loads of Enhanced? Couldn’t you have done it, couldn’t you have saved your parents?
Rahn makes a sound deep in his throat, then flexes his fingers. “Okay. Keelie, you’re with me. And Kayden. We need our strongest people, best fighters.” He pauses, touches his forehead, then looks around at the rest of the village.
Suddenly our numbers seem so small, and I know he’s trying to pick more of the stronger fighters—and best shots—but the obvious choice, Corin, isn’t here. He settles for Elf, then gives instructions to Sajo who’s to protect Nbutai in our absence. The man’s a relatively good shot, and he’s a mountain of muscle, looks scary. Intimidating. Would be a good choice to take with us, but I suppose someone good has to stay behind too.
“And get plenty of ammunition in the truck,” Rahn orders. “And knives—whatever we’ve got. Esther, call the dogs—I want some with us too. And Three, I want you on the radios: make sure they damn well work by the time we get back. I’ve got a bad feelin’ about this.”
I think the worst bit about the journey to Ninth Rock is that we don’t know what we’re going to find there—and my heart is still pounding from everything that happened before this revelation.
We go over and over what we know as we travel: Nico hears a baby crying out here and sees a woman and child who look Untamed. He goes back to Nbutai, and six of our people set off. Ninth Rock is only a short car journey away, but they don’t return within three hours.
The four of us—Rahn, Elf, Kayden, and I—are squashed in the truck’s cab. The sky’s starting to look heavier, and Rahn thinks that the Turning will be soon. I shiver. We can’t afford to be out in it, without protection, when it happens. Not when the spirits will lose whatever self-control they normally have and try and destroy anyone who’s visible.
Kayden holds the radio, keeps it turned on. Every few minutes, we hear crackling, but the words aren’t clear. Still, once or twice, I make out the tone of an Enhanced One’s voice—and I don’t think it sounds like the tone they’d use if they were announcing a capture or anything to do with the Untamed. Once, I think I even catch the word work.
I glance at Elf next to me, pressed up against the window. He stares straight ahead. Something tells me he definitely won’t tell Rahn about me and Red now. I’m glad.
Even if it’s because your people are in trouble?
I squirm. That’s selfish, I know.
“You all right?” Kayden asks me.
I nod.
Rahn steers the pickup truck onto rougher ground, and the engine roars. “Keep lookin’ about and ’round. We don’t want to be ambushed. If Enhanced Ones have got our people, they’ll be lookin’ for a settlement nearby, and we don’t want them seein’ us.”
“More likely to hear us first,” I say.
Elf frowns. “You think we’re going to have to leave? Set up a new village where they can’t find us?”
“Possibly.” Rahn pulls the vehicle sharply to the left, avoiding a deep hole. He ducks slightly in his seat and looks up. “That sky ain’t lookin’ great.”
I look at it. But it’s getting darker—maybe a bit stormier. There are no signs of the spirits yet. But the Turning’s coming, I’m sure.
I lean forward a bit, try to pull my shirt away from my back. I’m sweating, and the leather seat’s making it worse. I often have this problem in the trucks.
“What’s that?” Elf points ahead, and I narrow my eyes.
Rahn slows the truck a little as we look.
I frown. “It’s…it’s the
m.”
Six figures stand on the sand by a clump of vegetation and two small, warped leafless trees that look dead. I pick out Nico easily, because he’s the shortest, then Katya because of her height—she’s tall like Seven.
“Any signs of the Enhanced?”
“No.”
Rahn speeds up. We reach them in less than a minute. Once we stop the engine, it’s so quiet. Eerily quiet. The desert’s always quiet—that’s why we’re safer here, because we’re so far from the Enhanced Ones’ major cities, and New Kimearo is only a small town compared to others I’ve seen—but now the air has a darker sense of silence to it.
Then I see the bodies.
A woman, and a child.
“Bloody hell!” Rahn yells, then jumps out of the pickup.
The rest of us follow.
“What’s goin’ on?” Rahn shouts. “Been attacked?”
It’s a few minutes before anyone speaks—or at least, it seems like minutes.
“They were too badly hurt,” Nico whispers. He moves toward me, and his arm starts to go around my waist, like it’s an automatic reaction, then he stops, steps away. He’s shaking.
Everyone’s shaking.
And I try not to look at the bodies, but I can’t help it. There’s a lot of blood. It looks like an animal attack. I see deep scratches.
And the baby… I look away quickly, my stomach churning.
“The Enhanced didn’t do this?” Rahn questions.
They shake their heads.
“She’s come far. A leopard, she said. When they were sleeping. She’s… her car broke down a lot farther north.” Paul moves toward Katya.
“Before she died, she warned us to be careful.” Corin looks briefly at the leader, then away. He takes a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket.
“Careful about what? The Enhanced? We’re always careful about them.”
“Careful about who we trust in our group. She said she saw an Enhanced man and an Untamed woman talking together, looking friendly, before. Near here.”
My face starts to burn. My breathing gets heavier.
No.
I try to keep calm.
It doesn’t mean she saw me. It could’ve been anyone. And Red and I meet farther west than this. Anyway, it’s too much of a coincidence if she saw me. Way too much. First Elf and Five saw us, and now this woman too?
My shoulders tighten.
But there aren’t any other Untamed people about here. We’re the only ones. We don’t even know how many other Untamed groups are out there.
But she saw me.
Shit.
“What?” Rahn’s voice is thunderous. “An Untamed woman with an Enhanced man? Around here?”
“That’s what she said.”
Elf clears his throat, and my attention jerks to him. Shit. He’s going to say something; he’s going to—
“We should get back,” Elf says. “We should send their bodies off, and then get back to Nbutai.”
“Quickly,” Katya agrees. “It looks like the Turning’s finally coming.”
Rahn says the Spirit Releasing Words for the woman and the child, and then we send them off. But the nearest running water is a half-dried out stream and I don’t have a good feeling about their journey to the New World.
Nico nods toward me. “You look off. Feeling all right?” His voice is blunt.
“I’m fine,” I say, my eyes narrowing. Why’s he talking to me?
“Come on,” Katya yells. “We need to get back.” She points up at the sky. Dark patches are creeping in now.
We pile back into the trucks, each in the same one we arrived in. I’m squashed between Rahn and Elf, and Kayden drives.
“I don’t like it,” Elf says. “That woman. What do we know about her? Where’d she come from? Are there others nearby?”
“Paul said she told him she’d been traveling two years with her husband after their settlement got caught,” Kayden says. “She came from higher lands, and crossed an ocean. Her husband died two weeks ago. Got sick.”
“I don’t care about her life-story,” Rahn says. “If there’s another Untamed woman around here—we should find her. Before that Enhanced man preys on her and fully converts her.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t think it’s anyone from Nbutai.
He doesn’t think it’s me.
I stretch out my legs as far as the footwell will allow.
“It’s disgusting.” Kayden breathes deeply. “Thinking about one of us coupling with one of them.”
I want to point out that, according to Paul, the woman only saw the Untamed and Enhanced talking, even if they looked friendly, but Kayden’s words seem heavy, and there’s something about his tone that makes me breathe faster. Besides, what exactly does looking friendly actually mean?
Elf nods. “It’s wrong.”
I try to ignore how pointed his words seem. He wouldn’t tell them now, would he? No, he was starting to believe me about Red earlier. That’s why he wants to meet him.
“How can one of us willingly go with one of them?” Kayden continues.
Elf digs me in the ribs. “You’re quiet, Kee. Don’t you think it’s wrong?”
I feel heat rushing to my face, and I glare at him. “Of course. All those who are Enhanced are monsters. Each and every one of them.”
Elf presses his lips together firmly, and I try to read him, work out what he’s thinking. I breathe deeply. I can persuade him completely when he meets Red.
“Are we going to make it back in time?” I ask, a few minutes later, mainly to break the heavy silence that’s fallen. “The Turning’s got to be close.”
“The spirits ain’t out yet,” Rahn says. He sniffs loudly. “We got tarpaulins in the back if we need them. Just drive faster. I’d rather be in the village when we have to take cover. Not in the back of a pickup.”
“We could stay in the cab. At least in this truck. We all fit.”
“We stick together. Safety is in numbers. Just keep drivin’.”
Then there’s silence. We don’t speak; we just watch the sky and pray that we get back in time.
I wonder at what point Rahn will decide we need to stop and pool together from the two trucks. But he doesn’t give the command, and we keep going. The wind is picking up. Part of me knows it’s quite a slow start for the Turning—and I should be glad, because it means we’ve got more time…but I can’t stop my heart from thudding and pounding so much that I feel sick and lightheaded.
Get a grip, I tell myself.
By the time we get back to Nbutai, the sky is dark purple and orange, and navy blue patches are creeping in. The seasons are changing, and we have seconds before the spirits enter.
We run, barely killing the pickups’ engines before we’re out of the trucks and—
“Keelie!” Katya’s suddenly by my side, and then—then I see it.
The spirit.
It’s hideous. Bigger than the one Red and I saw, and gray—partly translucent and—
My eyes narrow. I can’t make it out. Can’t see it properly.
Katya grabs my hand, whirls me around toward her. “Don’t look at it! Run!”
I go cold. She’s right. I mustn’t look at it. People rarely see an evil spirit—see one properly—and live. I can’t tempt fate. Not when I already looked at one.
I run as fast as I can, trying to see ahead, to the huts, but I can’t. Everything’s murky, and there’s suddenly so much mist. I hear teeth gnashing, and something shrieks—a spirit, high and wailing.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise. They know we’re here. The spirits know we’re here. And it’s the Turning. Every part of me starts screaming internally. They’re going to hurt us, kill us! We need to get undercover. We need to hide.
Katya pulls me along, and I hear steps behind us, see Paul and Nico.
“Where’s Elf?” I try to pause, try to see him, but they don’t let me.
“Come on! Can’t stop!”
I cr
ash forward, and sand sprays up over me. But it’s damp now—damp from the mist—and it clings to my bare legs. I turn, looking, and—
Elf smacks into me, breathing hard. I grab him and turn. The huts are ahead, so close, I can see them now.
The shrieking behind us gets louder, so much louder.
We reach the nearest hut—Nico and Yani’s. And then we’re all piling in. All of us—so many.
“Shut the drape!” Rahn yells, and then he’s pushing past me, and I smell the strong stench of sweat. “Get back!”
“Be quiet!” Katya hisses. “They’ll know we’re here and—”
“Of course they know we’re bloody here! That one saw us.”
“Yes,” Katya says. “Only one. We don’t want the whole lot knowing.”
Everyone hushes, even Rahn. Above, we know the spirits are gathering. They’re noisier this time, shrieking straight away. And I think of Mila, how scared she’ll be, and hope that Bea isn’t too overstimulated. I hope with all my might that Seven is with them. Or Marouska. They’re both good at calming people down.
I sit down on the edge of the hearth. Nico’s bed is next to me. I stare at the familiar blankets and feel something cold rise in my chest. It looks different than last time. It’s the strange light—it’s got to be. The Turnings are strange. They can happen at any time of day. They mark the changing of the seasons, and the evil spirits fill the skies, and the good spirits too—but they become evil in the Turnings as well—as, above, everything turns orange and purple and navy. The sun seems to disappear, and there’s nothing but the spirits moving out there.
Shuffling sounds fill the hut suddenly; Nico moves through the crowded space, and several frown at him. Then he’s next to me. He sits down, and reaches for my hand. I let him take it for a moment, before I snatch it away, a strange anger hot in my veins.
Five watches me.
Above, the spirits rage.
It doesn’t last long; a surprisingly short Turning.
“That doesn’t feel right,” Katya says. Her words tremble a little. “There’ll be another one soon. There’s still pent-up energy waiting for its release.”
A Dangerous Game Page 15