Lorna hooked it all up with no problem. He reached for the on switch and she knocked away his hand.
"I put this thing together," she said. "I get the honors."
She fired it up. It wasn't as rackety as he expected, but it had been years since he'd been inside a room with a functional machine of any kind, and the chug of the generator was disturbing, a deep vibration that felt capable of shaking his guts free from their tethers. The air smelled so sharply of alcohol he thought his nose hairs might burn.
Lorna pointed to a light on the jump box. "We're in business."
"The business of standing around while a box does all the work? This is just how I always imagined the future."
She smacked the counter. "Going to be a while. Want to screw? Or get the car ready?"
"What are you, a fantasy woman?" Walt ran his hand over his stubble. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd like to get out of the city. Also, I am incredibly filthy, in the unsexy physical sense. It would be like fucking a dustbunny."
"Then you owe me one."
"I'll owe you as many as you like."
She smiled and headed upstairs. He followed, the thump of the generator receding. Once they were outside, he could no longer hear it at all.
"What do you think?" he said. "Find a car outside of town? Past all the snarls?"
She shook her head. "Just take that Suburban. Can bull our way through all the snarls."
"It's got such bad gas mileage. One of these days we have to start thinking about the environment."
She snorted. "Can swap the battery into something smaller down the road. We'll need to siphon out the old gas."
Walt nodded and went back inside the hospital for a length of plastic tube. He fed it into the Suburban's gas tank and sucked. It tasted like chemical poison death. He spat into the street while the stale gas spattered into the gutter.
Something incredibly fast whirred over Walt's head. A bang echoed down the street. Lorna gaped. Walt grabbed her and leapt behind the car. Another shot whumped into its side.
He reached for the blunt alien pistol inside his vest.
13
"Say, that's a pretty good idea," Mauser said. "I'm sure they'll be happy to oblige this little suicide pact of yours."
"It's not hard," Raina said. "All we have to do is kill some of the Catalinans."
"Now we're killing islanders?" Martin said.
"And making it look like it was the Osseys."
Mauser slitted his eyes, slowly smiling. "You are a devil. I am not yet certain whether you're the Devil, but all signs point to yes."
Raina shrugged. "It's something the dogs taught me."
His smile sagged. "Wait, now I think you're crazy again."
"The Osseys all wear the same thing on their shirts. We kill two of the Catalinans and carve that stupid pirate into their faces."
"That's a Raiders jersey."
"Not all raiders wear it. The Catalinans don't."
Mauser rubbed his eyes. "It seems the generation gap has come early."
"The islanders always come to coast on the same day," Raina finished. "We'll dump the bodies on their route the night before."
"Moses on the cross," Mauser said. "So where do we get the Catalinans?"
"I don't know."
"Oh. Well, good try."
She stopped on the sunlit sidewalk and blocked his path. "You're the one who's been everywhere. Who knows everything. You figure out how we get them."
He screwed up his face and sighed at the sky. "Listen, messing with the Osseys, angling for a little loot, that was all a good laugh. But this is starting to get convoluted."
"You owe me."
"In a certain Conan the Barbarian sense, sure, you saved my life, I owe you mine, blah blah blah." He leaned in close, narrowing one eye in a half-wink. "But what would happen to me if I just walked away? What thunderbolt would strike me dead? What pox would fall upon my house?"
"I could find you," she said.
"You're certainly poxy."
Martin scuffed his feet. "Guys."
"If that's how you feel, you should leave right now," she said. "Because the Catalinans won't stop until we're all slaves or dead."
"There is that," Mauser muttered. He glanced back at the church, then shooed them on. He contemplated the dusty sidewalk for half a block, then looked up sharply. "Oh God. Oh, fuck me with a circus tent."
Martin whirled toward the church steeple, tensing to run. "What's wrong?"
Mauser dropped his hands to his sides, helpless. "I've got an idea."
"What is it?" Raina said.
Mauser gestured toward the sprawling waterfront with its bars and hair salons and bistros. "The Catalinans don't always come here in big battle-groups. Sometimes just two or three of them make it over. I know where they go and I can get us in. On one condition."
"You get all the stuff," Raina said.
"Smart kid."
"Why do you even want it?" Martin said.
"Because they're raiders, man. They get all the best stuff. These days, if you've got something good, you can't stash it in a bank. There's no cops to come arrest a thief and give back your things. If you want to keep something, you have to carry it with you. They'll be carrying your weight in treasure."
"But what are you going to do with it?"
"Retire," Mauser laughed. "Some day I'm going to be too old for this shit. When that day comes, I want a hoard built up to see me through my twilight years."
"So what's this place you know about?" Raina said.
He waved his hand. "It's run by some women. Professionals."
"Professional whats?" Martin said.
"Does it matter? Professional women. In fact, it's a law firm."
"Prostitutes," Raina said. "He sleeps with them."
Mauser scowled at her. "It's a business transaction. Mutually beneficial barter. Better for them to earn a living at it than to run around getting raped."
"That's what you'd do if they weren't here for you?" she said. "Rape them?"
"Well, probably not. No. No, I wouldn't rape anybody. I'd probably just be sad, and make my hand cry itself to sleep each night." He shook his head vigorously, as if shaking off insidious temptation. "Anyway, who are you to judge, Killer McGee? You're the one leading us on the South Bay Death March."
"Against bad people."
"And I'm using my legitimate business contacts to help you. Do you want that help or not?"
"Yes," she said. "Take us to your prostitutes."
"Well, it sounds weird when you say it like that." He crossed the second bridge back to Long Beach. Water sloshed in the canal below, light blue in the hazy sun. "Gonna need to gear up first. Get those guns of yours. Food, water. Could be weeks until their next visit. I don't want to interrupt our stakeout over a little thing like starvation."
Raina walked beside him. Part of her didn't want to tell him about the bunker. If she told, it would no longer be safe. But she knew of other hideouts like it, though they weren't as good, and she could survive with nothing if it came to that. She'd done it before. And if Mauser tried to take it from her, she'd deal with him. Right now, his help was worth the risk.
"I know a place," she said. "It has everything."
"I'd like to see that," Mauser said. "How big are the unicorn stables?"
The walk from Long Beach to the bunker took the rest of the day, a sunny slog down broad boulevards between Walgreens and Jack in the Boxes and the Trader Joe's, all of them hollowed out, picked clean, shelled of necessities, the junk left behind for whoever wanted to try to make use if it. She wondered sometimes where it had all gone. Most of the food had been eaten, and she often found caches that had spoiled or been ruined by rats and bugs. Many of the durable items like guns must have been taken away by people fleeing the city, or hoarded in foolish numbers by those who'd outlasted the plague. Many of those had since died, their treasures forgotten. Hunting the troves down wasn't safe. Unless you knew a place well enough to notice
a fixed fence or a shifted curtain, it wasn't easy to tell which homes were truly abandoned and which were still guarded by their residents.
The passage was tiring enough that even Mauser shut up. She wasn't sure that Martin could make it in one trip—he was so frail, a walking vase—but he kept up without complaint. At dusk, she led them into the woods, climbed under the hole in the fence, and opened the trap door to the bunker. Downstairs, Mauser scanned his flashlight over the dry, tidy shelves and whistled.
"Place really does have everything."
"Except an owner," Martin said. He lost himself in the room of radios and wires. Raina showed Mauser the basin in the wall where magic new water appeared and they filled their jugs. She opened the great beige tubs and got out crinkly silver packets of freeze dried apples and potatoes and chicken and beef. Mauser's gaze roved between the bins.
"You know," he said, "we could stay down here. Say to hell with the Catalinans and the Osseys and everyone else who's not us."
"They have my mom," Raina said. "I have to get her back."
"Yes, but here's the thing: do you?"
"You're a devil. Stop trying to trick me."
"It's not a trick," he said, annoyed. "The only trick is the one the world played on us when they made us believe we have to be good people. You know what's more important than being good? Being alive. Good little girls try to rescue their kidnapped mothers. Smart little girls understand there are times you have to walk away."
Raina stuck out her chin. "You think I don't know that? I know what you can fight and what you can't. You can't fight a plague. You can't fight the things in that ship in the bay. The Catalinans are just people. I can fight them. I can win."
"Well, I tried." He zipped up a backpack of silver pouches and ran his flashlight over the whitewashed stone walls. "We'll stay here tonight. My feet are killing me. One more mile and I'm pretty sure they'll finish the job."
That was fine with her. Insulated underground, the bunker never got cold, and there were whole shelves of blankets and sleeping bags. They ate oranges and spinach they'd picked along the way, saving the lightweight freeze dried food for travel. When they blew out their candle, the bunker swallowed them in a perfect darkness that always made Raina feel safe.
That meant the moon wasn't there to watch over her, though. She'd have to look out for herself. If Mauser was playing some kind of con, it was a long one—and he could have sacrificed her to save his skin at Preston's—but you could never be too careful with strangers, especially men who were larger than you. Their strength made them weak to the temptations that crawled up from the dark places of their heart.
She had her room to herself. There was no door, so she rolled up a blanket and laid it across the threshold to trip anyone who tried to sneak inside.
Without windows, they slept later than they meant to. The sun was well above the western mountains before they loaded up and headed south. After a few hours, they were back on the highway they'd taken the night before.
"Where is this place?" Raina said.
"Where else?" Mauser said. "The docks."
"The place we passed that was playing the music?"
"That's the one. Nothing helps you feel less silly to have your pants down than a little music."
After the highway, he split off from the piers and set up camp in the upper floor of a house on a hill a couple blocks away from the waterfront. Upstairs, he ditched his two big packs in favor of his small bag with a pistol, medicine, fresh socks, a day's food and water, and toiletries and sundries. Raina did the same and waited for him at the top of the stairwell.
"Where do you think you're going?" he said.
"To the prostitute store with you."
"Oh no you're not. Way too dangerous for that."
She cocked her head. "We're planning to attack experienced killers and you're worried about danger?"
He gestured at her body. "I don't want anyone getting ideas."
She couldn't stop herself from looking down. She was fit from walking and hauling nets and lines on the boat, but she saw nothing exaggerated or to her eyes exceptional.
She met his gaze. "Like what?"
"Like your lack of a Y chromosome. If I brought you inside that place, some dude would try to buy you from me."
"How much would it cost?"
"I am insulted you think I know the answer to that." Mauser moved to the stair landing and barred the way with his arm. "You'd only invite unwarranted attention. Some of these people aren't very good at hearing 'no.'"
Raina bumped into his arm. "This is my fight."
"Yes, and you can rest easy knowing that when it comes time to do actual fighting, you'll be front and center. Right now it's about business, and nobody wants to do business with a fifteen-year-old girl." He scrunched his mouth. "Well, nobody you want to do business with."
"Who cares, Raina?" Martin said. "This is just to set things up, isn't it?"
She backed away from the staircase. "I don't like being left out."
"Trust me," Mauser laughed, "there are times when it's for the best."
He went downstairs. The front door closed. Raina went to the bedroom on the south side of the house and watched him walk down the street toward the sea. He disappeared behind a row of stores, reemerging a minute later on the endless docks. He approached the front of a four-story condo, knocked, and was allowed inside by an unseen doorman.
"Do you think they really buy girls?" Martin said.
"Yes."
"That's so...gross."
"You wouldn't go to a place like that?" she said.
"No. Especially not if the women don't want to be there."
"I don't think any of them do."
"Well, it's wrong. People shouldn't have to do that. I wouldn't want to be with a girl like that."
She frowned. She didn't see how they could like it either but maybe they thought they had no other choice. Maybe they liked it better than fishing. She didn't like Martin's prudish judgment, but she didn't like Mauser's casual acceptance of it, either. She hoped they owned themselves. Otherwise, they were certainly being used.
Mauser emerged from the condos a few minutes later, hands pocketed in his leather jacket. It was a straight walk between the docks and their house, but he turned left, vanishing into the cluster of waterfront shops. What would she do if he left them? Go see the women herself? She'd have to. It was that or go back to Jill and be a delivery boy while the woman's so-called rebellion puttered along.
Mauser showed up a half hour later. Martin wandered to the upstairs landing while Raina intercepted the man in the foyer.
"Here's the deal." Mauser blew into his hands. "They don't know when the boys from the island will be around next. They don't exactly schedule appointments. But they usually come by once a month, sometimes more."
"Do you know what their boat looks like?" Raina said.
Mauser smiled and shook his head. "Give me some credit. I'm not going to spend the next month sitting around on some oyster-smelling dock playing boat spotter. I've got friends there. One of them has agreed to hang a red lantern from her window when the islanders show up." He pointed to a window in the upper floor of the pierside condo. "That one right there."
"And then we kill them."
"You have a one-track mind, you know that? Once we see the lantern, we wait until they conduct their business, get sleepy, maybe a little stoned. Easy prey. Once that happens, my friend will turn the lantern white."
"Then we go in," Martin said from upstairs.
"Exactly." Mauser tapped the side of his nose. "I'm like the Sun Tzu of convoluted whorehouse assassinations."
As usual, she had no idea what he meant. "It has to be close to when the big boat's supposed to come again. We can't hang onto the bodies for days and days. We could get sick. Animals could smell them."
"And when does the big boat grace us again?"
Raina rolled up her eyes, thinking. "Twelve days."
"But they'll be back ag
ain next month," Martin said. "Even if we miss them this time, we can try again then."
This was true. But that would mean one more month for her mom to spend in the Catalinans' hands. One more month for their leader Karslaw to go on living. One more month for her father's spirit to be trapped in the bearded man's spell. Raina didn't want to wait. She would have to make the moon another offering. A proper one. The most potent one she'd made yet.
That night, they stayed up late, but she waited yet again for the others to sleep. As soon as they were out, she crept outside and walked up the dark street. The moon liked water. It shined and played on it. She went house to house until she found a swimming pool with a foot of rainwater in its bottom. She kicked off her shoes, climbed down the steps to the empty shallow end, and scooted on her butt down the slope to the collected water. It was slimy and foul, but she had to prove herself. If she couldn't handle a little green sludge and a couple mosquitoes, the moon would never believe her.
She got out her knife and cut the back of her hand. Not deep—she'd need her hands—but enough to draw blood. It dripped down her brown skin in a black line and fell to the stagnant water with tiny ripples.
She tipped back her head. The moon watched her from high in the sky. It was more than half past full and growing more bloated each night. It might not be hungry. But she'd never offered it anything nearly so fat.
"Help me take their lives," she whispered to it. "Help me take their lives, and I pledge them to you."
Had it widened just then? Had its silver eye bulged in anticipation? She grinned and blinked back three times to show she understood. She climbed out of the pool and cleaned off her feet and ran back to the house.
They didn't have much to do besides watch the windows of the condo and keep out of sight. Mauser showed them how to play hearts and gin rummy and bullshit. They gambled with pennies and he cheated constantly. On clear days, she could see Catalina to the south, a high blue bulge of land at the edge of the horizon. Twenty miles away. She could sail her dad's boat there in half a day or less, depending on winds, but she'd probably need help.
A yellow lantern burned off and on in the window Mauser had pointed out. Never red. Days counted down: eleven left until the big boat came to collect its taxes, then nine, then five. The moon reached its fattest and began once more to starve itself to nothing. They had plenty of food, but not as much water, and Raina didn't like not knowing anything about the neighborhood they lived in. She wanted to know where to run. Where to hide. Where to lay in wait if chased. At night, she roamed the blocks around their home in an ever-widening circle, sneaking deeper and deeper into the dead streets of Long Beach. She felt better.
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 84