"Yes," Raina said.
He gave her a pained look. "Nevermind. Look, something strange is going on. The Catalinans had a sweet system set up and they're letting it decay. It should take a second apocalypse to prevent them from coming to collect their being-alive tax from us. Now, maybe something happened with their boat, but it's not like they just have one. So what's the hold up? Did the alien sub from Malibu get them? Did they lose more people to the Osseys than we realize? Are they vulnerable?"
"Maybe we should just go ask them," Martin said sourly.
"That's exactly what I'm thinking. Except I intend to ask the questions with our eyes. And without alerting them to the fact we're asking questions in the first place."
"You want to go spy," Raina said.
"If they're planning an attack, it would be nice to know about it before they roll in the cannons and cavalry." Mauser yawned and sipped the tea he'd brewed from some of the mint and herbs they'd planted in their paltry garden. Abruptly, Raina remembered it had once been among her chief worries to find a way to grow tea so her parents would never run out. It had been less than a year since those days, but it felt like a lifetime.
"And if they've sailed away for greener pastures," Mauser continued, "it would be awful nice to know that, too. Bet they left all kinds of interesting things behind."
Martin rolled his eyes. "No wonder you want to go there so bad."
"I make it a habit to align my personal interests with my professional ones. That's how I accomplish so many big important things, Martin."
"When?" Raina said. "How long will it take?"
"If we leave tomorrow, we can be back by the following morning," Mauser said. "I don't think it's a great idea to stay on the island past daybreak. Can you take that much time off your busy air-fighting schedule?"
"Can we look for my mom?"
"We can sure keep our eyes open." He turned to Martin and raised his brows. "You feel like holding down the fort while we're gone, chief?"
"No," Martin said. "I'm coming with you."
"Can you even lift your arm without pain?"
"Why? Were you planning to surrender?"
Mauser snorted. Raina cut him off. "If he wants to come, then he can come."
"This is my plan," Mauser said.
"We just took a vote. Two to one. You lose. We'll take my boat."
"You have a boat?"
"And I know how to use it."
Mauser did some grumbling, but the issue was settled. The next day, Raina went to Carl to let him know she might be gone a couple days.
"Where to this time?" he said. She didn't want to lie to him. Instead, she said nothing. He glanced out the southern window, as if he already knew, and folded his arms. "Wherever it is, you're going there for the same reasons you're coming here."
"I'm not going to get in any trouble."
"Really? Then why are you working so hard to learn to fight trouble when you do run into it?" He smiled at her and gestured at her belt. "Let me see your knife."
Her heart skipped. She handed it to him, sheath and all. "Are you finally going to teach me it?"
"Not really." He pulled the knife from the lacquered wood and ran his thumb along the part of the blade that looked like magic: the oily, swirling pattern that ran parallel to the cutting edge. "My father would shit himself if he heard me say this, but Japanese blades are the best. Do you know why?"
Raina shook her head. "They're the oldest?"
"The perfect blade is a contradiction. Hard steel makes the best cuts. It's sharpest. But its hardness makes it brittle. Prone to breaking. So the toughest, most durable swords are made of springy steel. Flexible enough to survive the shock of battle. Yet a springy sword wears down faster, dulling its edge." He thrust the knife at her face. She danced back. He flipped the blade so she could see the swirling pattern. "The Japanese found a way to meld hard steel to spring steel. To make the sharpest blade also the toughest."
He sheathed it with a click. "You're a very hard girl, Raina. Don't think that makes you the strongest."
She took back her knife. "Are we going to fight more or what?"
Carl laughed. "Of course. And if you make it back from wherever you're going, I'll show you how to use a knife."
She spent the rest of the day readying her boat. They shoved off when the sun was a couple hours from the horizon, tacking east past Long Beach, then swinging back to the southwest at dark. The island was a black, steady mass. When they drew close enough, she could see lanterns flickering on the eastern shore. She swung back to the east to keep them out of sight of the settlement, then turned sharply toward the island, anchoring just off the shore of a rocky beach.
They jumped in the cool water and swam to land. Martin had found a waterproof bag for their stuff and they toweled off and dressed in dark clothes and shoes. Mauser checked and pocketed his pistol. Raina had carried her tanto and a bamboo stick while she swam. Martin removed several layers of baggies from a palm-sized black object. He glanced up the silent shore and pressed a button. Its screen lit up blue.
"A camera?" Mauser said. "Now there's a smart idea. Don't suppose you have a printer."
"At my old house," Martin said. "But I don't want to go there unless we have to. I haven't been back to see my mom in like three weeks."
Raina laughed. Mauser scanned inland with his binoculars, then led the trio up the shore toward the town they'd seen from sea. The scent of kelp washed in from the rocks. Around a bend, a toppled crane rusted in the grass. Two sheds sat beside a dirt road, paint peeling from their sides. Raina liked the thought that she was here in the darkness and the Catalinans didn't know it.
They walked for a mile until the island curved enough to see the lanterns again. Mauser knelt and watched the quiet town through his binoculars. A lone dog barked from the hills above the small bay.
"They have cute little houses," Mauser murmured. "I expected them to live in lairs of some kind."
Martin took a few pictures, holding his hand over the camera's screen to block out the light. They moved to a blank hill and gazed down at the bowl-shaped valley. A few hundred houses nestled in the winding streets. Smoke curled from three different chimneys.
"Well, they're still here," Mauser said. "No sign of battleships or saddled-up dragons, though."
"Maybe this isn't their only town," Raina said.
"I've only seen about sixty, eighty different faces come around to collect tribute. I'd be surprised if there were more than a few hundred people here. Could all fit in this town easy."
Martin clicked away with his camera. Raina watched a figure strolling alone by the beach. She pushed a clump of damp grass from her sightline. "Maybe we should talk to someone."
Mauser chuckled. "'Hello, old sport! Planning to launch any major invasions soon? Who am I? I'm just an innocent stranger who happens to think black is slimming.' Something like that?"
"We already learned they're still here. We won't learn anything else by sitting on a hill."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what turns up when you have the patience to let the wicked do their thing."
"It's really quiet," Martin said. "I don't even see their ship at the dock."
Mauser swung around his binoculars. "You're right. Maybe there is another settlement. Or maybe they're off hunting for the fountain of youth. God, why can't the enemy just tell us what they're up to?"
The surf rolled across the beach. Crickets chirped from the grassy hills. A whoop of laughter rose from a well-lit store down on the waterfront. Raina's knees grew stiff and she shifted position. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of white not far off to sea. A sail. She took Mauser's binoculars. It wasn't the Catalinans' flagship they used to collect tribute, but the boat came in and tied up at the dock anyway. A man hopped off the ship and ran through town, following the road past the last of the houses and into the hills.
"Where the hell is he off to?" Mauser said.
Men lowered a ramp from the ship and hauled heavy boxes down
to the base of the dock. They finished unloading a quarter hour later. One man lit a cigarette. He finished it and stamped it out just as the clap of hooves pealed from the hills. The team drew a large wagon down to the docks. The men loaded it up with cargo.
Mauser gritted his teeth. "We have to follow it, don't we?"
"I will," Raina said. "Go back to the boat if you want."
He shook his head. They crawled back up the hill, standing once its crown blocked them from view of the town, then circled around to where the road fed into the hills, crossing brushy little canyons and a golf course where the grass had gone a bit yellow but was still being mowed.
The road unspooled toward the interior. Mauser brought them into the brush and got out his binoculars. After a few minutes, hooves click-clocked up the way, wagon wheels rumbling behind them. A lantern swayed from a hook mounted above the driver. The team walked by and headed into the rolling hills. Once it was a few hundred yards ahead, Raina and the others got up and followed, keeping off the road.
The path led through a mile of gentle hills before feeding into a wide valley. At the other end, candles shined from the windows of a big and solid building. They crossed the valley, letting the horse team get further ahead to decrease the chance of being spotted.
"That," Mauser said, "is a fortress. Just like the man said."
The wagon stopped in front of a massive wooden door. The driver hollered up to the towers flanking the gate. Raina got down in the brush. The door lowered, spanning a dark pit ten feet wide. The team crossed into the fortress and the door raised back into place with a series of metal clinks.
"More like a castle," Martin said. "That is so cool."
Raina continued across the open field. A tall, blocky building stood behind the walls. Most of the windows were dark, but candles flickered within a few. She stopped and knelt down and took Mauser's binoculars again. She slowly scanned the outer walls, spotting a single face inside the tower above the gate. She moved her gaze to the inner building. In one room, a shirtless man stared out at the moonlight, touching the hair on his belly. Another room appeared to be empty despite the light. Beyond another window at the top floor of the palace, a woman moved back and forth, dark hair tied in a short ponytail. She came to the window, gazed into the darkness, and closed the curtains.
Raina lowered her binoculars. "My mother's in the castle."
26
They returned to the island as heroes.
The people of Avalon streamed from their houses, rushing down the sloped streets to gather at the dock outside the Scaveteria. Their faces were anxious slates ready to be filled in with the news. Sailors guided the ships in to port; others tied down and roped them to the cleats.
Karslaw strode to the railing and gazed down. "We met the enemy, and the enemy is no more."
The crowd roared. Men and women kissed. A teen boy lit sparklers and handed them to the kids, who ran down the beach trailing light and smoke. The soldiers piled off the boat, mobbed and hugged by family and friends. Other citizens watched in rigid silence, scanning the face of each emerging troop.
Seven men and two women hadn't made it back. Karslaw hugged the families, cupping their cheeks as he murmured condolences. He looked very gubernatorial. Walt didn't much care. The only thing on his mind was finding Lorna.
She wasn't among the crowds. She was in her house, sitting in the living room reading a book. Her other hand held a mug of coffee.
"Well, I killed them all," he said. "Again."
She marked her place with a scrap of paper and set down the book. "How many made it back?"
"Almost everyone. It was pretty weird. I honestly thought there was a pretty good chance we'd all die down there, but there were hardly any of the things left. Not many young ones, either. Either they don't breed any faster than we do, or they don't have the food or resources to crank out a hive. Guess they're no better off than us. Not enough bodies to get things done."
Lorna gazed at the wall. "I wish I could have gone."
"Speaking of, how are things?" He gestured toward her middle. "With stuff?"
"With the piece of you and me growing in my belly?" She touched her stomach. "Fine."
"Well. That's good."
"Is it?"
"That depends on us, doesn't it?" he said.
She met his eyes. "Still thinking of leaving?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Stay," she said. "A few more days. I'll have your answer."
He left, less annoyed at her than at the fact he had emotions in the first place. It was senseless. She'd been acting like a jerk to him for weeks, yet he still wanted nothing more than to forgive her right now and go be happy together forever. He'd walked into the jungle with her feeling pretty good. A little wanderlusty, maybe, but content enough. They'd tromped around the wilderness together and he'd somehow walked out of it carrying a messy bundle of affection, lust, tenderness, and care for her well-being. It was harder to get rid of than any parasite. If he had a parasite, he'd want to get rid of it. This, though, he wanted to hang onto. He just didn't know how.
They were partying downtown. He joined them. After his first jar of moonshine and orange juice, he realized it might not be a great idea to mingle with people who'd wanted to punch his lights out just a couple weeks earlier, but it turned out any resentment for him had died along with the aliens in the ship. He was far from the only hero in town—in fact, he was one of about ninety—but as soon as the others recognized him, he didn't have to get up for a new drink for the rest of the night.
Graciously, Karslaw didn't send a messenger to knock on his door until the following afternoon. Walt chugged water and brushed out the taste of last night's booze, then walked across the hills and valley to the castle.
"My general," Karslaw said in the bare-beamed room that Walt had come to think of as the man's throne room. "You should be the one in this chair."
"Hardly," Walt said. "Those things put up about as much fight as a crash test dummy."
Karslaw shrugged his broad shoulders. "There were fewer than I expected. But that doesn't undo the damage they'd dealt to us or the certainty that, given time to breed undisturbed, they would have destroyed us." He smiled ruefully, shaking his bearded head. "How many did we cleanse from that place? Three hundred? Imagine what would have happened if they'd all attacked Avalon at once. It would have been the death of every man, woman, and child on the island."
"Probably. I don't know, man. Imagine it from their perspective—they arrive as conquerors, come this close to annihilating humanity, then when they're on the brink of victory, some fool dunks them like a donut. Only a couple hundred of them survive the crash, which breaks all their shit, leaving them as primitive as we are. Cut off from the battle groups they had scattered around the globe. I don't know what kind of emotions those things have, but down there in the dark, they must have felt scared and lonely and isolated."
"You sound like you feel sorry for them!"
"I doubt they were much of a threat, that's all. Do you really think they were holding meetings to execute their master plan, then giving each other tentacle-fives and slouching back to their hovels to eat some mold? I bet they just wanted to be left alone." Walt sat on the arm of a lush black couch and gazed at the door set into the wall behind Karslaw. It was painted the same gray as the stonework. He hated when homes were painted that boring, safe beige. If he were in Karslaw's shoes, he'd dictate that all doors be henceforth painted red. "What did you want to see me about, anyway? Or was it just to remind each other how awesome we are?"
Karslaw barked with laughter. "I brought you here to get us in that ship. But the aliens weren't the only threat to my people. I have no doubt the gangs have returned to Long Beach in our absence."
"Why bother with the mainland at all? You realize you've got an island to yourself, right? That's the dream of everyone who's ever wanted to be rich."
"There are things we can't get on this island. The treasures of humanity shouldn't
be kept away from us by violent thugs. The whole peninsula could be ours. We could bring peace—and with peace comes prosperity."
Walt waved in a direction that may or may not have been toward Los Angeles. "Have at it."
Karslaw's smile faded from his eyes. "I had hoped you would come to believe in this place like I do. That you would wish to continue to fight for it."
"It's one thing to go after a bunch of fucking monsters from space who tried to extinct us. But a squabble with another group of people? One that's shown no interest in fighting you unless you're stomping around Long Beach? Sounds kind of political."
"It's exactly this cold-eyed analysis that would make you such a fine advisor."
"Can I just be a well-wisher? If Lorna wants me, I'll probably stick around. But I don't want to be part of any more wars."
Karslaw nodded, smiling sadly. "Very well. For all you've done, I thank you."
Walt waved and went home. To keep his mind off Lorna, he thought about what else he might do now that the business with the aliens was done. He'd liked the jungle very well—it was pretty, always warm, had lots of interesting old ruins, and once you knew which things could poison you, it was easy enough to keep yourself fed—but he thought he was done with it for a while. After spending time on Catalina, he liked the idea of an island—you could get to know the entire place, and by the very nature of their islandness, there would be an ocean around, which was always good for food—but he didn't have the skills to sail himself to one. Anyway, all the good ones were probably already taken.
He could rule out any place with a real winter, he knew that much. The jungle had spoiled him. Snow and frost and mittens and galoshes were unnecessary hardships. Humans hadn't evolved from snow-baboons. They were warm-weather animals. Know what proved it? Clothes. So he wanted to live somewhere they were optional.
He went to a sandy beach on the north shore to think all this through. The coast of Los Angeles hung in the haze of the sea. There was a thought. Set up shop in those pretty green hills north of the city. Back in days of yore, they must have been within an hour's drive of the peninsula, making it much too likely he'd have awkward run-ins with Lorna and Karslaw. But things had changed. In these exciting new slowed-down times, the hills up north had to be a two-day walk from the ones on the southern flank of the bay. He could live his whole life up there and never see the two of them again.
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 97