It was Tom, the careful one, who warned us about the security. He’d crossed his arms over a stocky chest, the build of a gladiator, and regarded us with intelligent blue eyes. “You’ll need some cover. They’ve cameras everywhere and don’t skimp on security. Mind you listen to Cilia when you’re out ‘shopping,’” he said with emphasis. “We can’t afford the attention.”
Jared nodded, barely looking at our host as he ate. But I could tell he’d taken the man’s measure and then some. “And how is it you know where we’re going?”
Tom had barked a short laugh. “Even if we hadn’t gotten a note from Alastair, it’s clear where you’re headed, True Born.” Our host cracked his fingers, then folded his arms across his chest again as his jaw worked. “Straight into the jaws of hell,” he said darkly, his words tinged with his thick Russian accent.
“Starry Oskol isn’t like it used to be,” Cilia tells us as we leisurely stroll the entire block, then turn and head toward the open marketplace a brisk ten minutes away. The buildings rise higher here than in Dominion, many of them charming four-stories and made of wood. The scent of char overlays the entire town, as though there has recently been a large fire. “It used to be a sleepy city,” she says, fishing for the English words. “Now there are many guards, much military. But I do not think it is the government in charge, if you understand me.”
We reach a stall filled with produce. “We have fresh chicken and vegetables tonight,” she tells us after haggling with a toothless old woman, who grudgingly hands over a chicken wrapped in paper. “Come,” Cilia tells us. We walk through the market to a stall tucked in at the very back, secreted behind the shade of a large willow tree.
Cilia nods at the keen-eyed woman behind the counter. “These are friends of ours,” she says to the woman, whose dark curls peek out from beneath a pink headscarf. The woman nods, unsmiling. She says nothing, but her look says it all. She rakes her eyes over us, startling turquoise eyes against dusk-colored skin. Cilia places a gold coin on the counter.
I’ve never seen its like. A blazing sun and crescent moon against a starry sky. “Maybe you can give them some advice,” she says in slow Russian. “The kind you give to tourists.” Cilia switches back to English and smiles again, her white teeth brilliant as the sun. “And some tea.”
A faded magenta curtain hangs at the back of the woman’s stall. She pushes us past it and beyond, into a small storage area. We don’t stop there amid barrels and crates but carry on to a rusty trailer parked underneath a tree. She bangs on the door. A giant of a man with a graying beard opens a screeching screen door and hops out. He wordlessly stares at us before lumbering away to the stall.
The woman pushes us inside and ducks out, returning with a pail of water. A live chicken struts past the door and follows us as we’re motioned into the living room. Fragrant, leafy tea is set to brew on a hot plate tucked into one dark corner of the trailer. The other corner is furnished as a small living room: two chairs, one a wooden rocker, the other a threadbare green recliner. A constellation of bright bronze coins tied with red ribbons hangs from the ceiling. Upside-down bouquets of dried flowers and herbs fill in every nook and cranny.
The woman takes the green rocker. I take the other chair, while Jared positions himself so he doesn’t have his back to the door.
The woman follows Jared with her eyes but doesn’t say anything as Cilia launches into rapid-fire Russian that I can’t follow. The woman answers, her accent different than anything I’ve ever heard, almost as though Russian was not her first tongue. Cilia nods, satisfied, then turns to us. “Nadya will tell you what she knows.”
The woman motions at us with knuckles fat with arthritis and nods. “A big gray monster.” Nadya chuckles through a mouthful of missing teeth. “The elephant has big feet.” Beeg, she pronounces the syllables. Then she unravels for us every detail she has about “the elephant,” her nickname for the long, hulking building that stretches across the town: the sentries, how many shifts for the entire building, outside and in, what times they’re relieved. At Jared’s prompting, she walks us through the interior layout—though she doesn’t say where she’s gotten her information.
It’s Cilia who tells us, “They have many cleaning staff inside. Nadya has family who works there.”
Neither woman mentions what they keep inside.
Coming to a halt, Nadya takes my hand and looks carefully at the lines before raising her face to mine. I look up at Cilia in confusion. Who are these friends of Alastair’s—fortune-tellers? Religious nuts? Sometimes the older generations go crazy over young women, though I don’t know what it’s like here in Russia. I’ve hardly formed the thought when Nadya takes a different tack, her English improving as we go.
“You understand, pretty girl. Here in Russia, the Plague was bad, very bad, long before it gets to Dominion.” She shakes her head, the bottom knots of her kerchief bobbing with her head. “Listen.” She taps her ear. “Here in Russia, it kill many people. Very many.” Nadya reaches for my hand. Hers are chaffed and dry.
“Yes, I learned that in school,” I tell her.
“You learn in school one thing. But the knowing is another. Many people left in Russia, they live in fear. They look for miracles and cures. I think maybe their miracle has come, yes?” Nadya smiles, her face a wreath of withered lines. I squirm uncomfortably. I haven’t a clue what she’s talking about. Neither, apparently, does Cilia, who shrugs, a look of confusion spreading on her lovely face. Jared comes to my rescue. He moves behind me and stares the woman down. But she just laughs, turquoise eyes glinting.
“You have strong protector, too. That is good. Keep him close.” Nadya rises to squeeze Jared’s bicep, as though testing its firmness, before sitting down again with a chuckle. Then she leans back on her tiny, threadbare chair and gives me a sidewise glance. Her expression holds a lifetime of grief. “You will need a strong protector, pretty girl.”
The hill isn’t large, but it’s dry and dotted with rocks big enough to hunker down behind. As dusk continues to fall, Jared records the movements of the guards. Not ten minutes past, we’d seen none other than Leo Aleksandrovich Resnikov exit the gray building, flanked by four hulking mercs. All five men slid into the back of an absurdly long black OldenTimes car and drove out the gate and away.
“It’s all accurate, Storm,” Jared now relays to the tiny screen. “Every last thing the old woman told us. Ten and two. Even down to what they’re carrying. Outfitted with semiautomatic Glocks, most of them, while the outer sentries carry Uzis. Good for shorthand combat, nothing long-range. They aren’t expecting tanks, just desperate people. We can slip in at ten. That’s the biggest window between the sweeps.”
I watch as the guards pass outside the “Elephant” and strain to listen to Storm’s instructions to Jared. Storm rubs a shadowy jaw, chiseled as a block of marble. “I don’t like you taking her in there.”
Jared says nothing, just nods. Because of course, he agrees.
“I’m going anyway. You know I am.”
Storm quits rubbing his jaw and sighs, clearly unhappy. “Yes, but I don’t have to like it. Give yourselves an hour tops. If I don’t hear from you in one hour forty-five once you activate the scrambler, I’m putting a team in the air.”
Jared replies with a terse nod. But I have other questions on my mind.
“And what of the Watchers? Has Father Wes surfaced?”
Storm rubs at his jaw with a rueful look. “We’ve liberated a few more weapons caches. But oddly enough, Dominion’s finest seem to be having trouble getting their hands on the Watchers and their supporters.”
Something about this whole situation doesn’t sit right.
“Storm, do you believe Father Wes?”
“About what, Lucy?”
“Wh-What he told Margot and me. The story of the twins who’d save Dominion from the Plague. Serena’s mom.”
Storm’s frown deepens. “Are you asking whether I believe Serena’s mother could really tell the
future? I wouldn’t even know how to begin answering that question, Lucy.” A beat while he stares hard at the screen. “Where is this coming from?”
“I’ve been thinking about Father Wes and why he’s doing what he’s doing. But what if it’s not even true? None of us ever met Serena’s mother—maybe she was just a crackpot.” I try to conjure an older version of Serena, though it’s images of Nadya that float through my mind. How she stared at the palm of my hand as though she were reading a book. The brightness to her eyes. I think maybe their miracle has come, yes?
“Are there even such things as witches?”
“The Watchers believe it. But whether it’s true or not? I can’t really say. Serena thinks her mother was a wise woman, but I’ve not met any official group. There’s no evidence to verify. Just a story.” Storm takes a deep breath, antlers flaring to brilliant life, and cracks a small grin. “Though, to be fair, no one would believe I exist if there weren’t True Born Talismans to back me up. What’s brought this on?”
I’m saved from answering as the Feed breaks into long gray stripes before coming together again.
“Interference.” Storm looks at something off the screen. “Alma?” he calls. “Can you tell Torch I need him, please?” He turns back to us. “Flux storm coming. You were saying, Lucy?”
“I was just wondering… The woman who gave us information today… She had coins hanging everywhere. They looked ancient—”
Before I can even finish stringing my thoughts together, Storm cuts me off. “The Roma have been stigmatized as witches long before the Plague came around.”
“You think she’s Roma?”
“Sounds like.”
“So she’s not a witch?”
He smiles. “I have no idea. It’s not as though I’ve had Doc Raines run any Protocols on them, if that’s what you mean.”
But it was Storm who’d shown Margot and me pictures of those he calls his True Born ancestors. Images of leopard-men crouching before falcon-headed kings. We were worshipped as far back as Babylonian times, he’d told us.
But the True Borns had returned to the world, if Storm is to be believed. The True Borns weren’t—aren’t—just a story etched in stone.
So what of all the other stories?
“I think she knew something about me,” I say stubbornly.
Storm nods. “We’ll discuss it when you return. And Lucy.” Storm keeps his eyes, cold as winter, riveted on me. “When you get back, we’re also setting aside some time to discuss your future. Yours and Margot’s, should you be able to bring her back.”
My hands tremble as though I’ve been Plague-struck. My stomach drops. Behind me, Jared sniffs. I step back from the Feed screen, not bothering to nod. He carries on in low tones to Jared for a moment or two, but I’ve stopped listening, head whirling.
I can’t decide what’s worse: that Storm will soon want to arrange my future, Margot’s and mine—or that he doesn’t seem at all confident that we’ll be able to bring her home.
21
Our father liked to tell us a bedtime story about what happened when the Plague first began.
Listen well, my girls, he’d told us with gleaming, icy eyes. People used to have different kinds of entertainment, he’d said. Operas, theater, ballet. Zoos.
What are zoos? Margot had asked, wide-eyed.
Places where people brought their children to see animals locked in cages. Margot and I listened, horrified, to our father’s description of lions behind bars, seals locked away in cement and water enclosures, snakes in glass pits.
Then the Plague struck, our father shouted. His fist mowed the air. Thousands died that first year. So many they couldn’t keep the zoo running properly. The animals were left alone, locked up and starving. No one to clean their cages, pick their lice, care for them.
What happened? Margot asked, her eyes round as saucers. I sat, her horror and my own mingling to turn me mute.
They did what anyone would do. Our father’s smile was a terrible thing as he leaned over us, eclipsing the light so all we could see was the dark outline of his eyes, his cheeks. The sheen of his hair.
They did what their animal nature dictated, he murmured. Those who couldn’t escape ate their friends and died of starvation a few weeks later. Still, for months on end, there were reports of lions eating the dead in the streets. Zebras galloping through neighborhoods to the north. An elephant that rampaged through downtown Dominion until it was brought down by the army.
There is a lesson in here, girls, he’d told us.
What was the lesson our father wanted us to learn that day?
As we wander through the “Elephant,” Jared taking flank behind me, I ponder our father’s lesson. We’d gotten this far, my True Born protector and me, though we had used up no little amount of luck. In the end it hadn’t felt much different than when we’d raided the Splicer Clinic. We circled the block with measured steps, coming around the corner at just the right time. Jared pulled out from his pocket the thin scrap of metal that he claimed would scramble everything but aerial surveillance and flicked it on. It was noiseless as the gate guard turned the corner, lighting his cigarette. And like mice, we slipped in through the small gate opening.
But now that we traipse through the halls, I feel a little like a zoo animal loosed from a cage. I’m thinking of that story still as we turn a corner and, instead of the bank of offices the old woman had told us about, we find ourselves in a massive, empty corridor. The floors are poured concrete, painted gray but for spidery cracks spinning throughout, just like the skin of an elephant. Wordlessly we continue, anxiety flooding every pore of my body.
It takes me a dozen or so steps to realize it’s not coming from me, not really. My heartbeat spikes. I take a deep breath, inhaling Margot’s horror. She’s here. She’s definitely here.
I’m so focused on my sister that I step around the corner unthinkingly. Jared reaches for me. His fingers tug at the hem of my shirt, trying to hold me back. He loses his grip.
And I find myself staring into the barrel of a gun.
The barrel points square at my chest. I hear the safety click off as the soldier aims. I wince. He looks up from his scope and does a ludicrous double take.
“M-Miss,” the guard splutters. In my panic, I’m barely able to take in the jumble of details: the green and beige camo of his uniform, cap pulled down low over eyes I’d as soon not look into. On the front left lapel is what I assume is his name, embroidered in black Cyrillic characters.
My legs shake but I don’t have time for terror. Because there’s something in the way he says that word. Something deferential and worried. I’m not seen as a trespasser. Which means—
“Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?” I say coolly, throwing him my best glare.
“S-Sorry, Miss,” the solider stammers. He quickly lifts the scope of his gun and throws the safety on. I reckon he can’t be much older than me, a fact I intend to take advantage of.
“I’ve gotten myself all turned around here in this stupid maze,” I tell him haughtily. “Where the hell is the bathroom?”
The soldier’s face turns a brilliant shade of scarlet. “You aren’t supposed to be outside your living quarters, Miss.”
I flash him my best Margot smile, pulling my hair over my ears in the way she does. “I’m not really the kind of girl who obeys rules.”
“I can see that, Miss. All the same…”
“So?”
“Miss?”
“Are you going to tell me which way to the bathroom? Once I find that I’ll go meekly back to my cage. All right?”
“Oh.” His gun drops as he points out a door around the corner. Where Jared, no doubt, is cursing my existence. “You go back the way you came. It’s kind of hidden,” he tells me in heavily accented English. “I can see why you went right past it. But you really shouldn’t be wandering around here by yourself. We are all armed. I’ll take you, then escort you back to your quarters.”
“Oh, would you?” I clap my hands together like Margot at a party, surrounded by admirers. “That would be so lovely of you.” I beam at him like he’s the second coming of the Cure. “This way?” I point back to where I’d come from. I don’t miss the faint blush creeping over his cheeks. He nods and takes my elbow, guiding me forward.
My eyes are squeezed shut when I hear the crunch and heavy thud that tells me Jared has won the draw. I don’t look behind me but wait for Jared as he pushes me back into the wall, eyes glittering green.
“Am I going to have to kill everybody here, Princess?” His words are clipped and careful, as though he’s not sure what he’ll do next.
I freeze against the wall, unable to do much more than nod. I mumble a bratty, “Maybe,” and push at his rock-hard chest.
He glares at me a moment longer before taking my elbow and leading me on down the darker hallway.
“How good are you at playing your sister?” he says, his glance sweeping for soldiers as he tugs me along.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?” he mutters, murder on his face.
I sigh, putting everything I’ve got into showing him what I think of his question. “Identical twins, Jared. We fool our own mother when we want to.”
He nods, clearly not as impressed as he should be. “Good. Because I’m escorting you to your quarters, Margot.” Jared shoves me into a shadowed doorway and eyes me dangerously. “If anyone comes, play it up. Loudly. Got it?”
“Sure,” I say with a shrug.
He holds me with a stare and then disappears back the way we came from, footsteps barely registering on the gray painted concrete. It’s the same color as the skies over Dominion most days, even down to the shine. Overhead, the ceilings rise at least thirty feet. Dark metal beams crisscross at the top, dotted with huge round lights and interspersed with fans. They’re working, too. The air is cool and delicious on my skin.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt proper air-conditioning. No one has that any longer, not even the rich. My mind staggers at how much money this military fort must have cost.
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