Beluga Fay (Dragon Bone Hill)

by Wellhauser, David S.

  “What...”

  “Someone’s behind us.” The child’s voice was cracking and gasping with the effort of getting enough air into their lungs. “They,” gasping, “killed Karen and Ricardo.”

  “They with Pym?”

  “Don’t know—but they were fast. Sucked us in, and before we knew it, two of us were dead.” Zesto knew there was more; he could see it on Rico’s squashed face.

  “What?”

  “It was fast—real fast.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ricardo had his stomach opened.” Rico mimed a horizontal wound across his belly. “He was still alive when we found him, but he’d had his throat cut as well—so he couldn’t tell us anything.”

  Zesto nodded. “And Karen?”

  Rico did not answer, but looked at the sidewalk.

  “What happened?” Zesto had not raised his voice, but there was an angry urgency in this.

  “They,” Rico hesitated and there was a sickness in their face, “took her head.”

  “Cut it off?” A quiet shock ran through the group.

  “Took it—I couldn’t find it.” There were a lot of twisted things in their world—especially since the Sweats—but no one had expected this, and everyone, Zesto included, fell into a prolonged, nervous silence.

  The mouth gaped and a trickle of blood ran from the protruding tongue. Why had he kept it? Cubeo Panche wasn’t certain at the time why he’d taken the head other than to test out the new khukuri blade. It hadn’t disappointed, but he then took the head and now it bounced and oozed on his hip leaving a gory trail behind, just about anyone could follow that had half a mind to do so. The kids seemed to be interested in just that—which meant he might have found a purpose for Karen’s head. As with Pym, it was going to be difficult for Cubeo to disappear into the city once they had a description of him. Between his height, over one hundred and ninety centimeters, and his grey eyes, and broken nose, he would stand out—probably more than Titus. One of the many reasons he’d been keeping a low profile until he could find a way to get next to his quarry.

  This put him at a disadvantage, because chasing them down would take care—if he made any enquiries of the wrong people, he risked being identified, and that meant he had had to eliminate more than a dozen of these since the docks. The gate fiasco had been his first chance since the pair of them had entered this city. It was also the first time he’d gotten close enough, excepting the market, but then he’d had to use avatars, and they weren’t up to the job.

  Not many—not any—had been up to the job. This meant what he had been told of the target just hadn’t been true. That, or the client had either been lying or did not know what they’d bitten into—since those early weeks in the city, Cubeo had become increasingly careful of Titus, and had waited and waited for the opportunity to strike. There’d been little enough of these as long as he’d been with the Fay—what Pym had chosen to call the gang (Cubeo was unclear what else to call them, but they seemed more than this) had amused Panche—or the elites.

  There’d been a couple of chances with the elites to take him, but Cubeo needed to disappear afterwards, and they would have gotten a clear look at him. His opportunities with Pym meant he would have to kill them all, and that would draw down on him Salazar’s wrath. Martyrdom was not the result he was looking for. So until an opportunity presented itself, he had kept as low a profile as possible, while watching and waiting. This was the first real chance, and he wasn’t going to allow the children to screw it up. He could hit Pym, but there were two problems in this. First, Pym had developed a set of important survival skills since hooking up with the Fay. Second, Cubeo still needed out of the city afterwards. The latter would take some time to arrange, but unlike Pym, he had a plan to get to the other side of the gate.

  That’s if the plan worked. It sounded good, but it would require a little bit of luck and guards that were no longer committed to the Colonel in the way they’d been when resources were flush. First he would have to deal with the Santana, which were now trailing him.

  “You sure, Dugo?” Zesto asked. They were sitting behind the burnt ruin of an old pickup.

  “Francisco saw him go in.” Dugo answered.

  “How big?” Zesto was having trouble with this because it was so far beyond anything he’d not only experienced but also had heard of.

  “Almost twice as tall as me.” Dugo wasn’t tall but, still, twice his height was taller than anything he’d seen outside a movie theatre. Others had mentioned seeing something in the shadows that was huge, but this was passing belief.

  “What about Pym?” Analise asked.

  Zesto wasn’t certain if the girl was worried about losing Titus after what he’d done to Luis or whether she was afraid of going after the giant. Whichever it was remained irrelevant—the woman was afraid, and that would be enough to send this whole thing sideways. “Go back and take half a dozen Santana—keep your eyes on him, but don’t get close until you get word from me.”

  Buldo had to decide which was more important—Pym, who was trying to escape, or whatever was behind them, someone who killed two of them and left a blood trail. In the end, there wasn’t much of a choice to make—if Zesto didn’t take care of this threat, there wouldn’t be much left of the Santana by the time they’d captured Pym.

  “This is just what Pym did,” Dugo again.

  “Waiting,” Zesto wondered aloud, “for you to come in and then...”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay—I’m keeping six with me, but go get a dozen more. They should be about a block east. Don’t take your time—if you aren’t back in ten minutes, I’ll be coming after you.”

  Dugo nodded.

  “I’m not moving on the giant until you come back, and if you take too long, they’ll disappear—that’ll be on you.”

  Buldo needed to make sure Martilyo understood who the Santana would be blaming if he took too long out of fear or laziness. Then Dugo was gone.

  Getting the stake to stand up took a bit of work. Cubeo couldn’t stick it in the ground because it was concrete, so he had to gather as much rubble as possible. It took a couple tries to get the balance right, but eventually this was done and he stepped back to make certain all was angled correctly. Stepping behind this, he picked up his bag and slung it over his right shoulder. Stopping behind the stake, he set the metal egg beneath a weighty piece of rubble then attached a narrow but strong cord to this, letting this out as he backed away and up over a small rise of refuse. Settling behind this, about four meters from the stake, he hunkered down—waiting for them to screw up their nerve, or get the reinforcements they would be sending for. Panche wasn’t sure which would get here first, but was hoping for the reinforcements.

  “Pick it up.” Dugo was walking behind the others that didn’t seem keen on rushing. Yet again, another casually weaved out of the group as though looking for something by the curb then bolted. Martilyo, who’d been watching, threw a rock catching the kid square in the back and driving him hard onto the sidewalk. “Pick him up.” Pointing to the recalcitrant Santana in front of him; shouldering a short spear from a scabbard of these, he made certain everyone saw what he intended. Dugo lacked the charisma of Zesto; all he had to keep others in line was fear—so he used this. “Another of you bolts gets one in the face—Telleran there gets to be first after the target.” Telleran stuttered and turned but was pushed forward by his guards. What Dugo saw of the look on their face was baleful.

  The trip had taken longer than Zesto had told him to take, but when Buldo saw the group, he seemed to understand the problem. Once he had them sorted into teams and had cranked their courage up with dreams of a proper meal and a safe place to kip, Buldo was ready to send the first team—led by Telleran—into the gap. Telleran and his team hadn’t seemed won over by the rhetoric but looked more persuaded by the spear in Dugo’s hand and the quiver of these slung over his shoulder. Others, thankful they weren’t to be the first ones in after the blood trail and
the giant, hung about at a safe distance waiting to see what the end result of Buldo’s gambit would be. No one seemed particularly enthusiastic or hopeful. Zesto was aware of that, was also aware this evening would be his last chance to save his position and, perhaps, the Santana.

  A moment after the group stepped into the gap, there was a muffled scream, and one of the younger ones emerged from the gloom; Dugo warned them back with the spear. Disappearing back into the darkness, there was some excited, muffled conversation from Telleran’s team then a dampened whumping sound followed with a puff of dust and smoke billowing from the ruin. Following this were several moans and then cries. “Thought so.” Dugo said moribundly and to no one in particular.

  The soft thud of the explosion and the shouts, which followed behind him, pushed Pym onward. The noises weren’t close, but they had carried easily through the windy canyon of buildings Titus now found himself between. It was one of the many built-up areas of the city—these were mini downtown cores, constructed to relieve traffic and human congestion. They had worked back when the city was without blight, but they were some of the first to fail with the epidemic. Now the windows were broken, shattered to fine grains of glass in some places; there were scorch marks on the concrete of several of these store fronts as well as the offices above them.

  None of the structures had been left unaffected by the Sweats and the disintegration occurring about the city and the collapse of the Salazar government. This was the first time Pym had allowed himself to consider what was happening and what the consequences for life under Salazar would be. Shaking himself from the thoughts and the manner in which they tore him away from being aware of where he was and what was going on about him, Pym looked about. Whatever was happening behind him did not fill Titus with confidence, and he needed, as quickly as possible, to make his way off the broad thoroughfare and toward the minor streets with their low buildings, apartments, and family residences. It took him another several minutes to do this, but he wasn’t entirely certain as to whether or not he’d shaken his tail.

  There was no longer that sense of being watched. He’d learned not to dismiss the intuition; learned what one sensed was a deeper sense than the rational mind was capable of and—more often than not—had a deeper and truer sense of what was going on about oneself. Titus had noticed he was giving in to the supposed world rather than the actual world as constructed by social paradigms and the vulgar physicality of the senses—not to mention the feckless modeling of reason. How far he’d come from the man who’d rowed ashore those many months ago was becoming apparent. What this meant for him he wasn’t certain. At the moment, he was still lightheaded from the beating, and there was, on occasion, a raging headache behind and above his eyes. That could have had something to do with the way he was permitting his mind to wander.

  To be fair, the movement of his thoughts appeared to be drawn after the damage to his mind in this last encounter nor did he feel entirely himself. What this meant, he supposed, had more to do with the death of Glenna and her friends than it did anything else. Being trapped was a big part of this. Still, he could not shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed or was wrong. What either of these things was would not reconcile or reveal themselves. Stopping by a ruined car and before a gutted and looted dress shop, Titus took a short drink of water. He still had two-thirds of a bottle of water left, but that would have to last him until he reached the warehouse, which was still a long and ugly hump away.

  Sticking the bottle back in the side pouch of the rucksack, he heaved this over his right shoulder and stepped back onto the tarmac. The roads of this district had been filled with less refuse than the sidewalks, so he preferred walking down the center of these. Besides this, the ruined storefronts and doors where filled with shadows, and the moon flicked on and off as clouds whipped over the sky making them more threatening than perhaps they were. Approaching an intersection, there was a high-pitched scream then silence. The voice had been that of a child—at first startled, Titus froze in place, and within a heartbeat, they were running for the ruined cover of an abandoned SUV. After a moment, there was the sound of something heavy being dropped on the planks of wood and broken glass. There had been a lot of those noises since Pym had tied up at the dock.

  From the broken window of a convenience store, the same place the sound had come from, stepped the giant. Pym didn’t see him as Zesto and Dugo had, but Cubeo was still a big man—maybe ten centimeters taller than Titus. Resting his head against the back bumper of the SUV, Titus could not believe what he was seeing. After a year, he was almost certain he’d left him behind on the ship. There’d been moments, the fish markets for example, when he’d not been certain about having left him back on the Beluga Fay, but that was months ago. Pushing up off the SUV and standing, Pym looked back over his shoulder, and several youngsters stepped out into the street. They were Santana. Were they working for him? Shaking his head, Titus reached for the automatic as he turned back to the man.

  “Stanton...” A pain blossomed in the back of his right shoulder as he pulled the weapon. The gun clattered to the ground, and Pym grabbed his shoulder and turned. It wasn’t a spear or an arrow, not even a silenced round. What he’d been struck with was a large rock. Moving toward the gun, Pym was grateful his shoulder was not broken. There was the clatter of one of their short spears on the ground next to this. Pym stepped back and looked at them—several were holding spears. Turning back to Stanton, Pym saw he was holding something out—a head.

  “They’re working for me now, Bob.”

  “Still love theater, Elton?”

  “Supposed I do, but it turns out you kill the leader you become the leader. Simple political structure but an effective one for the times.”

  Pym nodded and waited. No one spoke. He waited some more and Elton lowered the head, dropping this on the road with a subdued meaty thud. Not moving; not drawing a weapon; not making a move or an indication, Elton stood staring at Pym.

  “You’re a hard man, Bob...”

  “Titus Pym. It’s Titus Pym now.”

  “I’d heard. Mine is Cubeo Panche.”

  “You’re real name?”

  “About as much as Pym is yours.”

  Titus nodded and waited for Panche to make the next move, or Santana. The kids, however, didn’t seem in a particular rush, and Titus looked back to Pym. “They will hold you from getting away or using the weapon, but that’s it. Seems they have a rule about this sort of thing—we’ll have to sort it out.”

  “We’re not allowed weapons?” Titus asked.

  “Seems not, but that suits me. You?”

  Pym shrugged noncommittally; privately he thought it romantic drivel, but what was the point of irritating any of them?

  “You still interested in collecting your fee—after all this time?”

  “I will leave when we’ve finished—still intend to work, and I need your file closed before I can do that.” There was something mechanical in the reply, but something matter of fact as well. This was Panche’s world and the one he’d stumbled injudiciously into back home.

  Sighing, Pym stepped forward and away from the weapon. “This is all about them?” speaking lowly and motioning back over his shoulder with a chin.

  Cubeo nodded. “Once finished here, they will be useful.”

  “For what?”

  “Getting out.”

  “Thought you’d slip out as you’d slipped in.”

  Cubeo shook his head. “The gunboats are too good—too frightened. More risk than reward that way. Heading North.”

  “The Wall’s not so easy.”

  “You were using fools—you’d have been better off going alone.”

  “Wasn’t so easy.”

  “Not then, perhaps, but with the death of your girl and the collapse of the Federals, it will be much more so now.” With that, Cubeo charged. Though a big man—considerably larger than Pym in weight and reach—he was also slower. Slower because of his bulk but slower, a
lso, because he looked wasted about the edges. The flesh was hanging loose, and there were bags under the eyes. Besides these, there were a few more scars than he remembered and pain-lines about the cheeks.

  At the last moment, Pym stepped aside, and the tactical flashed—slashing at Panche’s lower back on the left side. Twisting about, the back of the man’s hand caught Pym hard on the cheekbone, and he was certain this cracked as he flew backwards. Landing hard, he rolled and was on the move almost immediately. Coming up, Pym could see Panche reach for the wound and pulled a hand back—there was red, but it didn’t appear deep enough. As the blade had slid down the back, there was still plenty of muscle to deflect the tactical. Smiling, more a grimace really, Cubeo pulled the khukuri. “Hope blades are okay?” Pym smiled, but felt no humor in the observation.

  “They’re not stopping us, so I suppose they are,” charging again as he finished. Pym knew he’d not survive anything close to a fair fight with the giant, so he used what he had—speed and a willingness to fight dirty. When he’d fallen, he’d come up with a large rock. As Cubeo sailed by a second time, he brought this down hard on the side of his head. This staggered the man, still he twisted, again, but this time with his blade and caught Titus on the left side over the ribcage. The wound was superficial, but there seemed a lot of blood. Not willing to give up the advantage, Pym pressed the attacked and struck with the rock again and again on the giant’s head. The second blow staggered him, and the third dropped him—the fourth appeared to have rendered him unconscious. At this, there was a scream from his side and a blur launched itself at him.

  Stepping back, Titus held out a foot, and the Santana sprawled over Cubeo. It looked to be a girl, but he had not waited to see. Racing back for the rucksack and gun, he dodged most of the spears but caught one in his right shoulder in the front and another sunk deep into his left thigh. Not stopping to pull these out, he stooped, pain shooting through his shoulder and thigh, for the automatic and came up firing; the Santana disappeared. With a moment to assess the damage, he pulled the spears, fit the pack on his back, and turned back to Cubeo—the Santana girl was sprawled over him, holding the khukuri and hissing—language seemed to have left her.