Raina armed the first of the locals with something extra.
"Fire flowers," she said, displaying the bows and their modified arrows to the puzzled people.
Hancock wrinkled his brow and picked up one of the arrows. A cone-tipped cardboard tube was affixed to its end. "What are these? Rockets?"
"Fireworks," Mauser explained. "You see one of the Sworn, you light it and fire it like a flare. We've cut the fuses so they'll go off before they land. So don't light 'em until you're ready to fire 'em."
"Why don't we just shoot our guns in the air?"
"Because then the Sworn will know right where you are. And will kill you before we can get there. An outcome which, in my estimation, you wouldn't be pleased with."
"Fireworks sound different than guns, too," Raina said. "And are much easier to track at night."
She distributed the fire flowers to six of the recruits, instructing them to seek out more of the locals and to fire off a signal at any sign of the Sworn. As they were heading out, Wendy walked into the Seat and lifted a hand in greeting.
"Sent a few people your way," she said. "And others to go find their friends."
Raina brushed dust from her pants. "How many of you still live here?"
"A hundred natives, give or take. The People of the Stars have brought in a few dozen colonists, though."
Mauser winced. "Potential spies, in other words."
"If you see them, detain them," Raina said. "Do not hurt them."
Wendy glanced through the trees, where the knights were clustered in knots, talking and gesturing at the land around them. "Raina, who are these people?"
"They are our newest allies: the knights of Better San Diego."
"Yeah. Hate to break it to you, but you're going to get your asses kicked."
Raina snorted. "Speak your mind, Wendy. You are among friends."
Wendy folded her arms. "I'm sure they're good people. But tell me you have more of them. Otherwise, they won't be nearly enough."
"I know that. As soon as we have armed the Dunemarket, we're going to Catalina. We will defeat Anson's occupation and return with scores more warriors."
"You're going to bug out on us? What happens if Anson comes here to duke it out?"
"Then resist with all your strength. If that is suicide, retreat. But I don't think he'll act as quickly as we intend to." Aware the woman's support could be crucial to their aims, Raina spent several minutes more convincing her why their strategy was necessary.
"The fire flower!" a woman shouted from the hilltop. "A flower has gone up!"
Raina jumped to her feet. "First Blade! To me!"
Her people materialized by her side. They ran up the hill, stopping at the top to speak with the sentry who'd spotted the burst.
"There." The woman pointed east-southeast. "Down toward the docks."
They had moved some of the horses to the Dunemarket for a contingency such as this. They hit the street, mounted up, and galloped uphill to the southern market entrance. There, they swung east toward the docks a half mile away, running in the sod along the elevated highway in order to dampen the racket of their hooves.
As Raina glimpsed water, a young man dashed from a weedy yard, waving a rag over his head. A bow and a quiver of fire flowers were slung from his shoulders.
"They're at the docks," he said. "Two of them. They ditched their uniforms, but I know their faces."
"Thank you," Raina said. "This could make all the difference."
"Their horses are over there." The man pointed to the parking lot of a hardware store. "In case you want them."
To lessen their chances of being detected, Raina had her team dismount and continue on foot. A vast parking lot scattered with cars led to shiny waterfront buildings. Past the buildings, a colossal ship of war rested at berth, a thousand feet long, its triple-barreled cannons elevated menacingly. Raina had seen the vessel before, but in that moment, she wished more than anything that they knew enough of the old ways to bring the ship back to life. With it, the war would be over in minutes.
"There." Henna pointed south of the battleship to the much smaller piers projecting into the waterway. There, two men had launched a small boat and were making their way toward the mouth of the channel a mile off.
The team advanced at a run, keeping behind the row of hedges lining the road. They entered the pier parking lot. Bryson set his rifle over the top of a car and sighted in on the Sworn.
"Wait," Raina said. "Don't shoot."
"Huh?" Mauser glared at her. "What part of our plan involves allowing Anson's people to clue him in to the fact he's being invaded?"
"How do we know they're going to see Anson?"
"You're right. We probably terrified them so badly they've renounced their nationalism as harmful to our shared global humanity."
"They're taking a boat. Yet they had horses; they could have ridden to the Heart without us ever knowing. I think they're going to Catalina."
"Where they'll alert the Sworn there to prepare for our attack? In that case, bon voyage!"
Raina turned to stare at him. "Anson's home territory is under threat. Do you truly think he cares about defending Catalina?"
Mauser's scorn transformed into something more thoughtful. "You think they'll abandon it. Leaving us free to swoop in and take it. But wouldn't you rather catch them by surprise? Smash them while they're separated from the main force?"
In the waterway, the men tacked south, zagging across the quarter-mile-wide channel. "No. They will try to take their soldiers back to the Heart. We will wait until they have evacuated Catalina and committed to the sea—and then we will sail out to meet them."
Mauser smiled. "You mean to unleash the dragons."
"I do. And to do that, we must set up the Eyes."
These had been Mauser's idea (though Mia had accused him of stealing it from a movie about elves). Sentries arranged at the high points along the coast, equipped with fire-starting materials. If Anson tried to sneak up on them from around the peninsula, the Eyes would pass word of this treachery via smoke signal. Raina dispatched Henna and Ira to return to the Seat to tell the Eyes to move into position. With one new location added to their responsibilities: the lighthouse at Point Vicente.
Once Henna and Ira were on their way, Raina and the others followed the boatmen long enough to confirm they were heading south toward Catalina rather than swinging around the peninsula toward Venice or Santa Monica. With the sailboat well past the breakwater enclosing the harbor, Raina went back for the horses and returned to the Seat.
There, five members of the Sworn stood in a scared cluster, hands bound by ropes, surrounded by knights. Henna was there, too; seeing Raina, she gestured her over.
"We caught them coming down from the hills," Henna said.
"Well done."
"Give us the order and they will never threaten us again."
Raina cocked her head. "You would have me execute them?"
"They are servants of the enemy."
"By executing them, you give them cause to kill you if you are captured. They are just as you have said: servants. We will ask those who live here if these men have transgressed. If they haven't been vicious, or cruel, it is a dangerous thing to punish them for being used in this way by their leader."
"I will note this defense didn't work at Nuremberg," Mauser said. "Not to say I disagree with you."
"We must be strong enough to be able to show mercy first," Raina said. "After that, show mercy where mercy is shown—and none where it is not."
It was now late morning. By their original plan, they would already have boarded the four ships they'd brought and been under way to Catalina, but now they were waiting for the Sworn to leave the island. Raina spent the time organizing the loyalists, who were now forty strong and continuing to trickle in. She gathered bicycles to maneuver against the mounted Sworn. Assigned others to the horses they'd brought—there would be no taking the beasts on the boats. Last, she oversaw the hasty erectio
n of a barricade on both sides of the Dunemarket and protected firing perches on the hills above it.
It would help. It was worth doing. Yet it wouldn't be enough to alter the basic facts: with the day waning, they had a mere fifty recruits to the cause. If delaying the assault on Catalina gave Anson the time to muster his forces for a counterattack, he might bring as many as two hundred soldiers to the field—along with whatever help the aliens gave him. If Raina lost her gamble, her campaign would be put down in its infancy.
Late in the afternoon, she assigned Bryson, Carl, and a few of the knights to continue organizing the recruits. Then, alongside Georgia, she took the bulk of the warriors down to the docks, where they could board the four sailboats at a moment's notice.
The sun slipped behind the high green hills. She felt her grip slipping with it. When darkness fell, and the Eyes could no longer see, what then? Should she continue the assault as originally planned and take her people to Catalina? They would need to sleep soon. She would have to wait until morning, having lost nearly a full day. More than enough time for the Sworn she'd let go to get to the island, gather their fellows, and unite with Anson.
Across the street, from within the boughs of a gnarled and eldritch tree that wore its flowers like little orange anemones, an owl hooted.
"The Eyes!" Mia said. "Look!"
She pointed across the town, where a hill rose above the city, capped by a Spanish church. In its high steeple, a fire had just begun to burn, sending thick white smoke skirling into the air.
Raina grinned so wide it hurt. They rushed into the boats and cast off. The sun was minutes from extinguishing itself against the surface of the ocean. The fleet cruised from the port at full sail, blown outward by the wind rushing from the cooling land. Raina kept her binoculars glued to her face. Briny wind swirled about her, tousling her hair.
She was the first to see them: three small gray outlines before the long shape of Catalina. The sun touched the water, going angry red as it passed from the world. For the moment, her fleet was headed dead south, and Raina held out a piece of paper at arm's length, marking the unknown ships' position versus the blue swell of the island behind them. It was impossible to measure their exact course, but the other ships were clearly headed northwest, meaning to bypass the peninsula on their way to the L.A. shore. Raina instructed her captains to hove west-southwest to intercept.
Minute by minute, the sky darkened. They were drawing nearer to the other ships, who could only be the enemy, but they wouldn't close on them until after all the light was gone. The moon would not be up for hours. Once it was dark enough, the Sworn could change course and slip away.
Raina went straight to the captain, a woman named Dee, and explained. "How can we catch them once it is too dark to see them?"
"Spread the fleet," Dee said. "I'll try to estimate time to intercept on our current courses, but the calculations will be rough."
The woman spent the final minutes of light gauging speeds and charting courses, concluding that they would cross paths within an hour and a half. An hour later, with the sun gone, the stars up, and the sea a blank black cloak, Raina gave the order to go silent: no lights, no noise. She moved to the prow, gazing into the darkness, ears straining.
Ahead, a light flickered. It was further to port than expected: the enemy had shifted course. She ran to Dee, who adjusted to try to match them.
"They could well shift again, though," Dee said. "We could pass within a few hundred feet and never know it."
Raina returned to the prow. Minutes slipped by, never to be had again. She got down as low as she could to try to make out the ships' sails against the stars, but the horizon was so hazy that there were no stars to see.
A shadow passed over the water a few hundred feet straight ahead. It was so faint that she lost it a moment later. She thought she heard the creak of boards, but that could have been one of her sister ships, or nothing at all.
There could be no more waiting. In a few more minutes, the ships would be lost. She sprung to her feet and ran to the armory in the cabin. She grabbed a bow and a quiver of fire flowers, then returned to the front of the boat and removed one of the arrows. She lit the fuse, drew back the bow, and fired. The arrow soared into the sky trailing a thin line of smoke. It hung in the air, the spark of the fuse a red star against the blackness.
It burst in a great green spread. An ear-cracking bang roared in the sky. In the eerie phosphorescence, three sailboats rushed toward the city, no more than five hundred feet to starboard.
25
He'd only been inside the ship on two other occasions. Anson had made it very clear that the aliens were his business, that they only wanted to talk to him. Could very well be this was true. As for Lowell, he found the aliens creepy, bizarre at a primal level. They didn't think like people. Most days, he tried to forget the People of the Stars had anything to do with them; if they only wanted to do business with Anson, then he was happy to abide by the no-contact order.
Now, though, he was thinking maybe it wasn't the aliens who were that concerned about keeping their business secret. Maybe it was Anson.
He took his horse to Manhattan Beach, riding through the fine, stately houses enthroned on the slopes overlooking the beach. The ruins of the ship gleamed in the sun, white-tossed waves churning around the edges of the dark metal. He tied up his horse in front of a nondescript gray house. The door was locked, but he had a key.
He swung open the door. A pistol thrust into his face.
"It's Lowell," he said, eyes not yet adjusted to the darkness. "Put that away before I confiscate it."
In the foyer, a bearded man holstered the gun but didn't move out of the way. "No one's supposed to use the tunnel. Orders from up top."
"Where do you think mine came from?"
"You got that in writing?"
Lowell set his hand on his belt. His gun hung on his hip. "Brantley, you want to get out of my way? I've got two people claiming they saw Walt Lawson skulking around here."
Brantley frowned, beard shifting. "Then shouldn't you be at the Heart? Protecting Anson?"
"I need to interview the captives. See if he said anything when he was with them to help us understand why he's back. Now is not the time for that son of a bitch to be poking at the aliens."
The man tapped his fingers on his hip, then shook his head. "I've got my orders."
"Brantley. You're going to want to move."
"Nuh uh. I'll catch a beating if I let you in without a writ."
"You asshole. You're telling me you want me to travel all the way back there?" Lowell pointed in the general direction of the Heart. Instinctively, Brantley glanced that way. Lowell drew his gun and shot him.
He moved fast, wrapping the body in a sheet and dragging it to the bathtub, then moving a rug over the blood stain in the foyer. Done, Lowell took the stairs to the basement, which was probably the only one on the block. The room and the tunnel it concealed were pitch black. Lowell clicked on his penlight and headed into the tube. It was a steep descent, but the rubbery flooring helped him keep traction.
The tube leveled out, began swaying slightly; he had crossed from the land and was now surrounded by water. The tube's cool air smelled damp, salty. He didn't bother switching off his flashlight. Too deep for the sun.
It was a long walk and he had to slow down whenever the tube jostled and threatened his footing. In time, the tunnel began to climb. It fed into a round room with a spiral ramp of orange alien matter leading up to a bare foyer. This was still underwater and there were no windows, but light shined dimly from recessed wells below the ceilings.
Two metal doors were set into the walls. First was locked. So was the second. Lowell swore silently and went back to the first, meaning to make sure it wasn't just stuck. Behind him, the second door swung open. Tentacles and spindly legs flowed into the room.
Lowell's hand jerked to his gun. He kept it there, making the A-like downward gesture with his left hand. "Anson. Anson."
>
The alien leaned closer, its bulging eyes so angry you'd think he'd called its mother ugly. Lowell gestured again. The alien spun on its pointed feet and slapped out the door, slamming it shut.
When the door reopened, a human walked through. He was bald-headed and pale and wore a loose, thin robe like a surgical gown. "What do you want?"
"Name's Lowell. I work for Anson."
"I know who you are. I asked what you want."
"He sent me to see one of the kids," Lowell said. "Randy MacDonald."
The man didn't move. "Why?"
"Classified. Do you need me to drag Anson down here to tell you himself? What's your name?"
"Brian." The man glanced down Lowell's frame. "You will have to leave your weapons behind. All your clothes. A robe will be provided for you."
"That's not happening. Where's Randy?"
"No one is allowed to bring anything they brought with them inside the ship. That's the new security protocol."
"Since when?"
"Since Anson declared it himself last week."
Lowell sighed and submitted, watching as Brian placed his clothes and gun into a locker in the foyer. Dressed in a scratchy robe that was barely warm enough for the marine air, he followed Brian through the left-hand door and down a long, dank tunnel. Most of the doors set into the walls were closed. The few that weren't showed boxes, tubs, and inscrutable, half-completed projects. You could almost believe the aliens were packing the place up.
After a few twists and turns, they entered a cavernous space with wrecked machinery piled against the walls. Repair bay. Racks of scrap metal and wiring filled half of it. The other half was more open, sporting workstations of tools and materials being used for construction or tinkering of some kind.
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 33