Raina curled her hand so her nails bit into her palm. "Reopening it? By what right?"
"The one you unlock when you storm in and take a thing."
"And our people who stayed there, they're assisting him in this?"
"They're not assisting him, but they're not inclined to resist, either." Henna rubbed grit from the corners of her eyes. "Our people are just trying to survive. You can't blame a person for that."
"I can blame a person for whatever I wish."
"Anyway, Anson is giving a grand speech to announce the resumption of trade. Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning."
"Tomorrow?" Raina leapt to her feet and went for her swords. "We have to move now."
"Yeah, that's why I ran here."
"Gather your things. Meet me at the shores of Avalon."
Raina grabbed her pack from the closet and tore downstairs. There, she dispatched messengers to Carl, Bryson, and Drea arranging them to meet her as well. She would have been able to take a horse to Avalon—it would have been smarter, she'd need her strength—but she ran. Because it felt good.
Because it felt right.
It was a short run. She crossed the final hill and looked down on the placid homes and hotels of the island she had wrested from Karlsaw and then been forced to inhabit herself. The bay was green and gold and the sun shimmered as though it knew nothing of war.
Henna was first to meet her at the dock, her bow slung over her shoulder, a sword on her hip. Carl came next. He carried two short swords and a pistol. He was small, and at his mid-forties, he was twice as old as the rest of them, but he had taught Raina to use her knives and if you locked him in a closet with a bear, Raina would not expect the bear to be seen again.
Drea thumped onto the dock a minute behind Carl. She was in her early twenties, blond hair clipped short to give the enemy no purchase in battle. She carried a long rifle. It wasn't Raina's favorite weapon—such rifles showed that you feared your enemy too much to get near him, and thus that you did not deserve to defeat him—but Anson had stepped outside the bounds of the good fight when he had offered peace only to betray her.
Bryson came last. His hair was straggly and disheveled, tucked into a sloppy ponytail. He too had a rifle with a scope. A pistol, too. Of the many ways a person defined themselves, Raina thought their choice of weapons did so best.
Bryson squeezed his temples with his left hand. "Next time we're gonna assassinate someone, can we have a little more warning? I got a hangover like a dog that won't quit barking."
"So you all know why we are here." Raina gazed across her warriors. "Anson believes he can remake our Dunemarket as his own. From his arrogance, he will die."
"And you think that will put an end to it?" Carl said.
"Alone? I do not."
Bryson narrowed his puffy eyes until they all but closed. "Then why exactly are we putting our asses on the line here?"
"Because," Raina said, "I believe it can be the first step. He has defined his kingdom through himself. If his self ceases, his kingdom may follow."
The words, as she spoke them, had the ring of truth. Her head agreed with them. Her heart, however, continued to protest. If she died, would Catalina fall? Or would those who had served with her carry on with renewed purpose?
"You know, I don't even care if it ends the war." Bryson laughed. "Killing that SOB is pretty cool by itself."
They wouldn't cross to the mainland until cover of dark, so for all their hurry to assemble, the rest of the day waited before them. Raina napped, as did the others, getting up for good as the sun neared the waves and the whole sky burned in shades of grapefruit and electric butter. They ate a dinner of fish and flatbread. At last light, they boarded the sloop and the crew shoved off.
The lanterns of Avalon flickered behind her. Raina realized she hadn't thought to make an offering. She waited for the thin and hungry moon to slink from the east, then bit the inside of her cheek and spat her blood into the sea.
The first cycle of fall was upon them and the night was cool, with a strong wind lending its aid to their mission. According to Henna, the lighthouse was manned and the People of the Stars were patrolling the harbor at San Pedro, but they had nowhere near the troops to keep watch on the entire coast.
The sloop dropped anchor downshore from the country club where she and Mia had killed the false Walt. The night was silent except for the song of crickets and the breathing of the waves. They set down the rowboat and paddled in to a small strip of sand. Raina dropped into the surf and jogged past the beach to the cover of the gnarled trees fronting the shore.
The other four joined her. The sailor paddled the rowboat back to the sloop, which would depart now so as not to be seen by Anson's whitecoats. They would rendezvous with it the following night.
Raina led the warriors up through the hushed Spanish manors and across the road constricting the peninsula. The hills beyond were rocky and weedy, too unstable for homes. They picked their way forward until the mist-fed forest swallowed them up.
Raina called first rest a few miles later, stopping in the overgrown yard of a crumbling house, where they would have a view of the sky. She produced the map she had sketched on the trip over.
"We will strike from the southern entrance to the market," she said, tapping the paper. "I doubt we'll be able to get closer than the gas station at the top of the hill. It will be two hundred fifty yards at least. Will you be able to make the shot?"
"Sure," Bryson said. "Unless I don't."
"I can," Drea said. "We've been drilling for something just like this."
Raina nodded. "Once he is dead, we will fall back along Sepulveda to the hills. Use the houses for cover."
Carl leaned over the map. "What if they've got dogs?"
"We head to the creek where their noses can't follow. It's two miles away. If they fall on us before then, we fight or we scatter. This is our land. It will keep us safe."
The night had hours yet to grant them. They followed the old horse trails, some of which still smelled like manure and the dew on the grass. The moon was a silver claw ready for blood. Around three that morning, judging by the stars, they descended from the forest into the desolate town. To some, the husks of the houses may have felt eerie, but to Raina, it felt like a home you knew so well that you could maneuver through it in perfect darkness.
She led them past the shopping centers where people were less likely to live. In the neighborhoods, a smatter of lanterns glowed behind curtains, but these were fewer than when she had watched over the land. They neared the top of the hill leading down into the Dunemarket and climbed the stairs to a tax preparer's office on the second floor of a strip mall.
It was hours before the speech. In the back office, Bryson curled on the musty couch and slept. Henna watched the street through the sun-battered blinds. Raina waited.
Dawn came. Footsteps scraped outside. Raina put one eye to the corner of the window. In the street, a man trudged north, heading to the Dunemarket. Over the next two hours, people trickled after him. She recognized few. She wasn't sure what she would do with the People of the Stars' settlers. Offer them up? Banish them? Allow them to stay in peace? She would need to consult the Bones.
They didn't have line of sight to the market. As the hour neared, Henna went outside to loop up the brown hills and watch from above. The sun climbed. The office warmed. Raina kept her eyes locked on the hill. A scrap of white flashed behind a pale green shrub.
They grabbed their weapons and filed out the back. Talk drifted from down the sloped road, but the entry at Gaffey Street was clear. Raina hiked up the hill, keeping low but not suspiciously so, and deposited herself in the shrubs beside Henna.
Henna handed over a pair of binoculars and pointed. "See?"
Far below, scores of people stood in the street, gathered to face the western slope. There, a patch of ground had been flattened to host a stage with a podium. Above it, a canvas tarp shaded the platform. No such tarps had been raised for the crowd.
As
Drea and Bryson braced their rifles and sighted on the podium, Raina watched the ridges for movement. Palms fluttered, long fronds drawing her eye.
Men stirred beneath the tarps. Three figures, shadowy. One strode toward the podium. He wore a t-shirt to expose his tan, muscled arms. He leaned on the podium and grinned. Blond. Handsome. Confident.
"Welcome, everyone!" Anson's voice boomed down the street, amplified by speakers. "Some of you know me. To others, I'm a stranger. Maybe even a bad guy. Trust me, I've been right where you are—I've seen my neighborhood overrun by violent thugs, looters, and killers. But that's what inspired me to fight back. To bring peace to the entire Los Angeles Basin. That's what today is about: restoring the Dunemarket that means so much to the community. So that people can get back to making a quiet, simple, untroubled living. So that we can rebuild together, hand in hand, knowing that after all these years of anxious chaos, we're finally safe."
Raina mouthed a silent curse.
"Ready?" Byson murmured, eye tucked to the scope of his long rifle.
"All set," Drea said.
Anson grinned and leaned forward, exposing himself to the sunlight slashing past the edge of the tarp. "I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to fight for you. To let you be free."
Raina's heart squeezed in her chest. "Hold your fire—it isn't him."
"What are you talking about?" Bryson pulled back from the scope of the gun. "He's right there. Blathering on about how great he is."
"That's his voice. But it isn't his body." Raina's blood went as cold as winter metal. "They knew we were coming. This is a trap."
3
Ness saw the first of them a couple hours southeast of Wollongong. Initially, he wasn't sure what it was—there was some debris in the water, which had brought him to the foredecks of the sub to begin with, and to his eye, the pale, floating object looked like one of the plastic bags he often saw swirling around the ocean.
Except when they came up on it, it was much bigger than a grocery bag. And most bags didn't have mouths and eyes and horrified, frozen expressions.
He grabbed the hand-cranked walkie talkie from his hip. "Sprite! Tell Sebastian to kill the engines."
"Huh?" Sprite's voice crackled over the line. "What's up?"
"Right now!"
Ness braced himself against the tower. The sub's engines went silent. The alien vessel drifted forward, slowing quickly against the resistance of the sea. Glancing across the surface for fins or long, missile-sleek shadows, he stripped off his gear, his shirt, and his pants. Seeing no sign of sharks, he dived feet-first into the water.
He landed with a glorp. Waves splashed around his ears. Salt trickled down the back of his throat. He oriented himself, located the body, and swam toward it. Every time he kicked his legs, he imagined his foot would bang into the rubbery body of a great white.
The man's arm and shoulder were draped over a plastic tub. Ness didn't know if he was alive, but he did know from experience that when people were drowning, they had a tendency to try to climb you like a tree. Meaning you got drowned instead. Rather than grabbing the man, he grabbed the handle of the tub and kicked back toward the submarine.
"What are you doing?" Sprite hollered from the topdeck.
"Taking a dip," Ness yelled back. "Do you see any sharks?"
"If I did, would you really want to know?"
Ness swore and kicked harder. By the time he made it back to the side of the sub, Tristan and Sam had climbed out on its top, too. The two of them were currently letting down a rope lasso. Ness grabbed it and looped it around the man's armpits. The dude's skin was cold, and although Ness had to pull his arms this way and that to get him into the rope, the man didn't so much as stir.
"All set," Ness said. "But I don't think he's alive."
The two women leaned into the rope. The man rose from the water, spinning slowly, droplets raining from his waterlogged clothes. While Ness waited, he turned in a circle, scanning the waves, then thought better and put his back to the sub so he could watch the full field of water around him.
Something splashed into the ocean beside him. He jerked, thrashing at the water.
"Don't worry," Tristan said from above. "It's just a garden-variety rope-snake. Perfectly harmless."
He tossed it over his shoulders. As they hauled him up, he braced his feet against the hull, wet skin squeaking on the metal. Up top, Sprite handed him a towel. He rubbed himself down and wrapped the towel around his waist.
They'd laid the man out on another towel. Sam kneeled beside him, a sour expression on her deeply tanned face. "He's alive. But he's out cold."
Sprite walked up beside Ness, peg leg thumping, and smacked him on the back. "Nice work, dude. Now what are you going to do about the others?"
Sprite pointed out to sea. Ness followed his finger. His eyes settled on another pale shape tossing on the waves.
* * *
Somehow, he whipped himself into jumping back in and dragging the other bodies back to the sub. In doing so, he discovered there were far worse things than the fear of sharks. Like discovering you'd just handled the cold bodies of two people who were totally dead.
Once they ran out of visible floaters, Sprite kept watch from up top while Ness climbed through the hatch, jogged down the orange ramp, and headed straight for the alien sub's little shower. He rinsed off the salt and death and got dressed. Tristan and Sam had taken the single survivor to medical. As Ness entered the room, Sebastian turned to him, tentacles lifting outward in admiration.
"HE LIVES," the alien signed. "BECAUSE OF YOU"
"I'd give more credit to the cooler he was hanging on to," Ness gestured back. "He's okay?"
"YES OKAY"
The man was stretched on a table. They'd wrapped him in crinkly silver emergency blankets. He looked like everything that had spent time in the water—battered, pale, and wrinkly—but he was a few years younger than Ness, late twenties maybe, and considerably bulkier. Like he'd used the plague as an excuse to play rugby all day.
"There's not much we can do for him," Tristan said. "But he's breathing and his heart's beating."
Ness suppressed a shudder. "Then he's in better shape than his friends. What exactly do we plan to do with them?"
"I thought we'd wait to decide until he wakes up."
"Boy, he'll love making that call."
"If you were him, wouldn't you want to?"
"If I were him," Sprite said, clumping in through the door, "I'd hope somebody gave me some pants before making me deal with my dead comrades."
The humans laughed. Sebastian swiveled his long, bulbous-eyed head toward Ness and signed, "WHAT DID HE SAY"
"He said," Ness signed back, "that he hopes—"
"You have to help us!" On the Swimmer medical platform, which was far longer and broader than human needs, the man sat straight up, emergency blankets crinkling to his waist. "My God, get them out of the water!"
"Calm down," Tristan said. "There's been an accident."
"You have to get them out." He reached for her, clawing at her shirt with his soft, water-logged nails. "Why won't you get them out?"
She thrust out her forearm, intercepting his, then bent her wrist to hook her hand around his arm. She yanked to the side, clearing his grip from her shirt. "You're safe! Who are you? What happened?"
He stared at her, mouth agape. His eyes rolled upwards, as if he were praying, or trying to remember the phone number of a girl he'd talked to at the bar the night before. As slowly as a toppling tree, he fell backwards and smacked against the table.
Sam rushed to feel the pulse at his neck. "He's still alive."
"What just happened?" Ness said.
Tristan ran her hand down her face. "Who knows? We don't exactly have a Dr. McCoy on this Enterprise."
"Let me phrase it another way: if anyone has a good guess if he's okay, I'd like to hear it."
Without looking up, Sam said, "Why do you care? Do you know him?"
Ness gritted his teeth
. "If it's hopeless, I'd like to know that before I plunge into shark-infested waters to fail to save some random Australian dude."
"He's not Australian," Tristan said. "He's from New Zealand."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I spent my freshman year being subjected to Peter Jackson's entire filmography."
He scratched his nose. "What's the difference?"
"Australians talk like they've been drunk for three years straight," Sprite put in. "Whereas you can give yourself a pretty good New Zealand accent by stuffing a crayon up your nose."
"That's rude," Sam said.
He laughed. "Want to know what I think you Americans sound like?"
"We're getting away from the point," Ness said. "What's a New Zealander doing off the coast of Australia?"
Tristan raised an eyebrow. "What are two Americans, a Hawaiian, a Swimmer, and a Chinese guy doing here?"
"You're saying he's hunting aliens?"
"The question isn't what he's doing here. The question is what are we going to do with him."
"TELL ME WHAT" Sebastian signed.
"Okay," Ness replied, speaking and gesturing simultaneously. "Tristan, what do you mean, what are we going to do with him? We're not about to chop him into chum, are we?"
"Who says we should help him?" she said. As she did so, Ness translated to Sebastian. Tristan moved over the man and gazed at his face. "We don't know a thing about him. Except that he just ran into a heap of trouble. I don't see what this has to do with our mission."
"What are you suggesting?" Sprite said. "That we treat this as a catch-and-release program?"
Tristan moved to the drawers in the bulkhead and withdrew a length of rubber tube. "What I'm suggesting is that, until we know who he is and why someone wanted his people dead, we tie him up like a rogue hog."
"IS A HOG BAD," Sebastian gestured.
"Only if you don't like bacon," Ness signed. To Tristan, he said, "You're right. Go for it."
With disturbing skill, she bound his limbs tight. He didn't wake. Sam and Sprite stayed with him while Sebastian returned to the helm. Ness and Tristan climbed back up top to survey the waters. In the early afternoon light, they saw plenty of splintered planking and assorted debris, but no more bodies.
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 3