Black Moon

by Weatherly, L. A.

  “You’re Wildcat,” he whispered. Before I could respond, he gripped my hand and said, “We’re all behind you – everyone I know. Keep fighting.” He hunched his shoulders and hurried off.

  For a moment I stared after him. Then I shook myself and kept on.

  I rounded the curve and froze. In front of Ernest and Mabel’s run-down brownstone were two grey, high-roofed Shadowcars.

  No. I ducked into the entryway of another brownstone. When I peered out, Guns had emerged, dragging Ernest and Mabel. Mabel looked as if she’d been crying; Ernest had a bruise across one cheek.

  No one else came out.

  Despair filled me, along with a terrible, shaming hope. Had anyone else been there? Hal, Ingo, any of the others? My gaze flew to the parked Shadowcars. Had I arrived just too late to see who was inside?

  The Guns shoved Ernest and Mabel into one. Mabel stumbled and a Gun struck her. I ducked my head away, feeling faint, remembering her stories about dancing in Paris – Ernest’s kind laugh.

  The sound of engines, and the sirens starting up.

  Slowly, they faded.

  When I looked again, trembling, the Shadowcars were gone, but they’d left a Gun on guard. He paced in front of the building, tapping a blackjack against one palm.

  I stared at him, then glanced quickly behind me at the door of the brownstone. I tried the doorknob. Locked. A panel with five buttons gleamed dully on the wall of the entryway, each with a name beside it.

  I buzzed one after the other. “Come on, somebody, open it,” I muttered frantically.

  No one answered. I licked my lips and watched the Gun pace. Wait him out, or try to sneak away? Suddenly my eyes widened: a small circle of red glinted from the sidewalk.

  Blood, still fresh enough to be red instead of brown.

  My heart thudded. I quickly scanned the sidewalk and saw another dot. Then another. They led in a loose, straggling line around the side of the building.

  The Gun stood with his back to me now, gazing up the street. I didn’t let myself think. I edged out from the doorway, then sprinted around the side of the house.

  I was in a small yard, blocked off by a fence. Another red spot lay on the cellar’s double wooden doors. I dropped to my knees beside them and knocked three times – paused – twice more.

  A flurry of movement inside. “Who’s there?” called a wavering voice.

  I sagged. “Hal, it’s me!” I hissed.

  The doors swung open. I scrambled down the stairs, closing them after me. Light angled in from a single grimy window.

  Hal was at the bottom of the steps. I hugged him. “Are you all right?” I gasped.

  “Yeah, but…but Mac isn’t,” he said hoarsely. “He’s been shot.” He moved aside. Mac lay in the corner with Ingo crouched over him.

  I rushed over. They were both in the double-breasted suits with the Harmony armband that they’d worn to enter the Weirs’ house, posing as high-up Guns. Ingo had Mac’s jacket off and was unbuttoning his shirt. When I crouched beside them, Ingo’s dark eyes briefly met mine; I saw relief battle fear.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

  “Looking for you. All of you.” A red stain was spreading across Mac’s white shirt. He was conscious, but clearly wandering. Dry-mouthed, I gripped his hand.

  “Mac, it’s Amity. Can you hear me?”

  He was pale as paper, sweating. “Hey, kiddo,” he murmured.

  “Help me,” said Ingo shortly to me.

  We got Mac raised up a little and Ingo pulled his shirt open, tugging it from his trousers. A bullet had ploughed into Mac’s side; blood streaked across his skin from the red-black hole. A handkerchief had been pressed against it. The cloth was limp and sodden. Blood still seeped from it, far too steadily.

  “You told me you hadn’t been shot, you bastard,” Ingo muttered to Mac. He was pulling off his own jacket now, his motions quick and frenzied.

  Mac was breathing hard. “Tried to save Weir…too many of them…”

  Oh no. I squeezed his fingers, trying not to show my dismay – my fear for his life. “You did fine,” I said shakily. “Don’t try to talk.”

  Hal dropped to his knees beside me, looking young, vulnerable. “I found him on Concord – it was all riots by then. Mac was hurt, and…and on the ground. I got him away and then Ingo found us – we couldn’t reach the tunnels, so we came here, but…”

  He trailed off, his eyes wide, fixed on Mac’s wound.

  “The safe house had been found,” Ingo finished. He unbuttoned his own shirt and yanked it off. Beneath it he wore a thin sleeveless undershirt – just like the one he’d worn that time we’d been on the roof together. I noticed it fleetingly.

  Mac had passed out. Ingo swore and felt for Mac’s pulse at his throat. “Damn it – we need him conscious if we’re getting him out of here.”

  “Maybe it’s good,” I said fervently. “He’ll be in less pain, at least.”

  “Yes, I hope you’re right…what’s happening out there?” Ingo yanked off his undershirt.

  I swallowed. “Ernest and Mabel have been taken…there’s a Gun on guard.”

  “So the plan’s all gone to shit, we can assume,” Ingo muttered. He bit at the undershirt’s cloth, starting a tear, and then ripped it in half. “Hal told me that Pierce is still alive.”

  I choked out a laugh. “Yes. Cain’s been killed, and all his cronies, but Pierce is fine.”

  “And Collis,” said Ingo.

  “Collie wouldn’t…” Hal started, and then trailed off – clearly remembering, as I was, the sight of Collie on that balcony with his arm around Pierce.

  Ingo’s gaze flew grimly to mine. He didn’t comment. His undershirt was a long strip by now; he wrapped it tightly around Mac’s waist. “Give me yours too,” he said to Hal. “Have you got anything?” he added to me.

  “My slip.” I stood up and wriggled out of it, staggering slightly on my weak leg. I handed it to Ingo. As I kneeled beside him again he folded it in a small, satiny square and pressed it over Mac’s wound. Mac groaned.

  Hal handed over his own undershirt, torn into a long strip too. Ingo tied it over the square of my slip and then sank back onto his haunches and rubbed a hand over his jaw, staring at Mac.

  “I think that’s the best we can do,” he murmured. He glanced at me. “How are the streets?”

  “Bad,” I admitted. “At least around Concord. And I think they’ve set up roadblocks a block or two to the west – it was way too quiet there.”

  Ingo winced at this news. “All right,” he said finally. “Centre Park. The entrance in the underpass.”

  “How…how will we make it that far without being caught?” asked Hal.

  “Do we wait until night-time?” Ingo said to me.

  I gripped my elbows. Mac was so very pale. “I think we’d better not.”

  “Agreed.” Ingo handed Mac’s jacket with its Harmony armband to Hal. “Here – welcome to being a Gun. Your sister and Mac are under arrest.”

  He and Hal quickly got dressed again while I crouched over Mac, stroking his damp forehead. I smoothed his unruly brown hair and thought how much I admired this man. Mac, you’ve got to be okay.

  Yet despite myself, I was very aware of Ingo as he pulled on his shirt. His long, thin torso was leanly muscled. I could see the ugly, badly-healed scar on his stomach from when another miner at Harmony Five had swung a pickaxe at him, at the direction of a bored Gun.

  I shoved my awareness of him away just as Hal finished getting dressed. “I’ll go check upstairs – see if there’s another way out.” He hurtled up the inside stairs before I could respond.

  “Help me put Mac’s shirt back on him, all right?” said Ingo.

  Mac moaned as we eased him up. Ingo somehow managed an easy tone. “Hang on, you louse – Sephy would kill me if you died. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

  We got his shirt on him. To my relief the bandage seemed to hold. “Ingo, what happened?”
I said in a low voice.

  For a moment Ingo didn’t answer. “First, tell me something. Do you think he betrayed us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said finally.

  Ingo buttoned Mac’s shirt. “I don’t know either, but I know what I suspect.”

  From his clipped tone, dread filled me. Ingo had never warmed to Collie, though I knew he’d believed, like the rest of us, that he could be trusted.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  He exhaled as we gently laid Mac down again. “It didn’t go smoothly, getting the Weirs out. At first it seemed fine. We all looked official – they let us right in. But one of the Guns, someone high-up, seemed suspicious. He asked for the code word.”

  I tensed. Collie had told us this was a possibility, and that the code word changed every week. This week the code was “serene”.

  “So Mac gave it, telling the Gun that he’d have him reported for insubordination. And the code was wrong.”

  “What?”

  Ingo bit the words out. “It was the code from last week. At the time I just thought it was bad luck – that Collis had gotten the wrong information. We had the family downstairs by then and all hell broke loose. Mac tried to bluff it out and pulled his pistol. A few of the Guns were on our side, you know, and they tried to calm things down, but—”

  Ingo broke off and swiped a hand over his face.

  “The head Gun started firing,” he said. “A few of the other Guns tackled him, but Mac must have gotten winged in the side. We got Weir and his family out; the head Gun was overpowered. The poor bastards who did it will probably all be hanged now. Damn it!”

  He sank back onto his haunches, gazing at Mac, his expression raw with pain and anger. “And now Pierce is fine, and your charming ex is fine, but Cain, who we know had it in for Pierce, is dead. How convenient.”

  It was exactly what I’d been thinking, deep in the recesses of my mind. It hurt. I’d desperately wanted to trust Collie in this much, at least – to know that I hadn’t been a complete fool to have once believed in him.

  “Is ‘charming ex’ really necessary?” I said tightly.

  “Fine, I retract it.”

  I started to ask what had happened when they got out onto the street, but then we both looked up as Hal clattered back down the stairs.

  “We can get out the back; there’s a yard,” he gasped. “But we’ve got to go now. The Shadowcar’s across the street again – there’s three Guns talking, looking this way.”

  I scrambled up, recalling the blood on the sidewalk. Mac had roused slightly, looking bleary with pain. “Where are we?” he murmured.

  “Not safe yet,” said Ingo softly. He put his arm around him. “Come on, my friend – let’s get you up.”

  Mac groaned as Ingo and Hal got him up to his feet. He stood panting, one hand pressed to his wound, head down.

  “All right,” he mumbled. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  Ingo was a foot taller than Mac. Still supporting him, Ingo yanked on his fedora, and angled it downwards, partly hiding his scar.

  “Are we ready?” he said to me and Hal.

  Though pale, Hal nodded. I gripped my brother’s arm and glanced apprehensively up the stairs.

  “Ready,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Somehow we made it the eleven blocks to Centre Park – sometimes ducking out of sight when we saw Guns, sometimes brazening it out as Shadowcars glided past. The Harmony armband worked wonders.

  “Not for long,” muttered Ingo when I said this. “They’re sure to be looking for me and Mac already.”

  He had me by one arm, in case unseen Guns were watching. Between him and Hal, Mac stumbled along as they half-carried him. Ingo’s fingers on my arm were firm, protective.

  I glanced quickly up at him. “What happened after you got the Weirs out?” I murmured.

  We’d reached the northern part of Centre Park, a good mile from Kay Pierce’s palace. This section had the zoo, and a playground. The swings hung emptily. From the streets beyond the gates, we could still hear faint yells and sirens.

  Ingo started to answer – then broke off as much closer shouts came from over a small hill.

  “Sounds like the Helpers,” Hal muttered. His eyes met mine, briefly panicked. Ingo swore, his hand on my arm clammy suddenly. We’d nearly reached the long underpass with the tunnel entrance.

  “Can you run?” he asked me, his eyes fixed on the hill.

  Terror iced my spine. I pulled away and pushed him slightly. “Yes! Go – go!”

  Ingo and Hal broke into a shambling run with Mac groaning between them. I ran too, ignoring the pain of my leg. Once beneath the underpass, I didn’t stop. I raced for the tunnel entrance – one of several old doors set in the shadows between archways.

  To my relief, the forgotten door opened as easily as always. Ingo, Hal and Mac were right behind me. Past them, through the small circle of sunshine at the underpass’s end, the first of the Helpers were streaming down the hill in their red-and-black uniforms. Had they seen us?

  “Hurry!” I gasped.

  Ingo and Hal pushed past me, Mac sagging between them. I shut the door and groped for the hidden lanterns. I turned one on. Ingo and Hal got Mac down the stairs.

  I quickly followed and handed the other lantern to Hal. Ingo gave me a level look, still supporting the semi-conscious Mac.

  I think it struck us both at once how very vulnerable we were down here, with Mac so injured. This area had intersections from all over – it was probably swarming with Guns.

  “This way?” said Hal, starting down the tunnel. It led roughly in the direction we wanted to go.

  I exhaled, my eyes still on Ingo’s. “Yes,” I said. Then I glanced back at my brother. “Go ahead a little bit, will you? Not too far, but scout things out.”

  Hal nodded and set off, his footsteps echoing damply. This section had once been a New Manhattan sewer. Scrawled numbers on the wall must have meant something to service workers once.

  Ingo and I followed. I put my arm around Mac’s waist and he moaned. Even in the shadows, I was alarmed at his pallor.

  “I’ve got him,” said Ingo. “You’re limping badly enough already.”

  “I’m all right.” As we kept on, I glanced up at Ingo’s profile. “What…what happened when you got President Weir out onto the street?”

  Bars of light from a grille above played briefly over Ingo’s face. He sighed. “I asked Mac if he was injured. He denied it, but I could tell he was – he was sweating, walking strangely. He ordered me to take President Weir’s family down into the tunnels as planned. He promised me he was all right.”

  Ingo grimaced. “So…I took them and went. When we were under 65th Street, I let them go ahead a little bit. I thought I heard gunfire up above – fighting. I didn’t tell them.”

  Mac and the others would have crossed 65th as they took Weir down Concord. I could hardly say it. “If they didn’t even make it that far…”

  “It had to have been only a minute or so after the explosion,” said Ingo curtly. “Make of that what you will.”

  My thoughts reeled. I told Ingo what I’d seen at the capitol building. He cursed. “With the faulty code word, that’s three for three. The lady was either tipped off, or is a very fast thinker.”

  His comment about my “charming ex” seemed to echo between us again.

  We got Mac over a disused concrete pipe in a silence that felt weighted. “I got the Weirs down into the hiding place,” Ingo said finally. “But I couldn’t stay there, not knowing that Mac was injured and that the Guns had already attacked.”

  I nodded. Not many of the others knew all the tunnel entrances. Without that knowledge, President Weir could have been trapped in the streets above – they all could have been. I thought of Dwight and winced.

  “The streets were swarming by the time I got to Concord,” Ingo went on. “I tried to find President Weir, but it was chaos – it was just dumb luck that I found Hal hiding with Mac in a
n alleyway. Mac was a little more conscious then. He kept muttering that they didn’t even get a chance to start gathering a crowd before the Guns turned up.”

  I bit my lip. “So you don’t know what happened to President Weir?”

  “No. Nothing good, I suspect.”

  We paused at the sound of running footsteps; Hal’s lantern-light came bouncing towards us.

  “I heard shouts up ahead,” he panted.

  Ingo and I glanced at each other over Mac’s head. “The old Kemp Street sewer,” Ingo said.

  “Yes, then down to the 6th Avenue Line,” I said quickly. “I told Sephy to go there in case of trouble.”

  “Good. Let’s hope that’s deep enough down.”

  As we started back, the world shuddered with a dull, thundering echo. My heart skipped as I stared at a shower of pebbles and dust pattering from a new crack in the tunnel roof.

  Hal had been a bit further ahead. He spun towards us. “An explosive?”

  Ingo’s voice was clenched. “Either that, or something giving a damn good imitation.”

  Another boom came from below, trembling at our feet. My gaze flew to Ingo’s as we both realized: Kay Pierce’s tunnel experts were blocking off certain routes. We could be corralled like rats in a maze.

  “Shit,” I whispered, my grip tightening around Mac’s waist.

  “My thoughts exactly,” gasped Ingo. “Hurry.”

  The way to the hiding place was a nightmare of Guns – distant shouts – the rumble of more explosions. More than once, tunnels we thought we knew the way through were closed off by new cave-ins and we had to backtrack.

  Finally, there’d been only silence for a quarter of an hour. About halfway down the ancient 6th Avenue Line, we came to Ode to Bones, with its weird, intricately arranged features.

  An old control room lay just opposite. Light gleamed from its depths.

  “Who’s there?” barked a voice. Jimmy appeared in the doorway with a rifle. His eyes widened; he rushed towards us.

  “It’s them!” he flung over his shoulder. “Mac’s hurt!” He took Mac from me; he and Ingo lifted him.

  Sephy rushed out and stopped short with a cry. “Is…is he…?”