Bloodlands

by Christine Cody

  She’d been grateful for what he’d brought her tonight, and he realized that he’d come out here to the New Badlands for Abby, but he’d instead found someone—or something—else entirely.

  He followed her up the stairs, noting that Chaplin wasn’t barking any longer. When he got to the top of the landing, Mariah was waiting, sans lantern, her hand on the door, which she’d already opened to a slit. He didn’t know why she was hesitating, but he had his own reasons for doing the same.

  The smells, the sounds beyond the door . . .

  Gabriel put his hand on Mariah’s shoulder and opened the door the rest of the way, revealing the crowd of Badlanders gathered in her home.

  Zel, the oldster, Sammy, Chaplin . . . even Hana and Pucci, all in front of Mariah’s bank of glowing visz monitors.

  And they didn’t look happy. In fact, they seemed stunned at the sight of Gabriel with Mariah. . . .

  Head down, she bustled out from behind Gabriel in her blanket and went straight to her quarters, where he guessed she was going to change into real clothes.

  Everyone’s gazes followed her. But when she disappeared, that left Gabriel to take the remainder of their scrutiny. Luckily, he was used to it by now.

  Chaplin, who seemed to scent what had transpired between Gabriel and Mariah, had his head cocked, as if he were stunned to realize that his mistress had survived being near Gabriel and his vampire hunger.

  Gabriel used his mind to say, Don’t worry, boy.

  And that was the extent of it. The dog, or anyone else, didn’t have to know more than that.

  As if still attempting to reconcile this with that, Chaplin turned his back on Gabriel to look at the monitors, and Gabriel guessed that the dog was punishing him now instead of Mariah.

  Well, then. After this matter with Stamp was concluded, Gabriel would take more time to assure the canine that he wouldn’t be around much longer as a threat to any person or relationship.

  He came the rest of the way into the room, and everyone but Chaplin stirred, crossing their arms in front of their chests, wiping at their noses with odd, fidgety don’t-know-what-else-to-do motions.

  The oldster, with his eyes squinty as he peered at one of the viszes, pointed to an outside view, the volume turned up so they had a clear show of Stamp standing near Mariah’s main entrance. “There he is, counown the minutes until we either come out or stay in.”

  Gabriel watched Stamp on the night vision. The kid’s tall, slim body was garbed mostly in a material that hugged his long legs, just as leather would. Behind the kid, Gabriel could see flashes of Stamp’s crew as they leaped by the lens while wearing their FlyShoes. They all had white kerchiefs in hand, as if bringing positive intentions with them.

  To Gabriel, it seemed like one big game, those hankies a mocking salutation. They had come in peace.

  Sure.

  The oldster added, “We all met here because Mariah’s got the best bunch of visz screens, thanks to her father. Also, she’s got the finest weapons.”

  Sammy, his stocky body swaddled in all that orange-and-brown hemp clothing, nervously licked his lips. “Stamp keeps telling us that there’s no need to fret about coming outside to meet him. He’s here on the up-and-up.”

  “He says,” Zel added, standing by the monitors, holding an old pistol at her side, “that they caught whatever’s been attacking his men, and they want to have us take part in a ‘memorial service.’ ”

  What was this? “They caught it?”

  “That’s what he says,” Zel added. “He didn’t say how, but I have to admit—this situation could be a mighty relief.”

  The others agreed most emphatically, and Gabriel kept his eyes on them, because he wasn’t sure why they’d be so suddenly optimistic when the mood had been wary.

  Strange, these people. Remote, secretive, and contrary. Again, Gabriel thought of Annie and what they might be hiding about her.

  “It could get Stamp off our backs,” Zel said, “if we go out there and accept this truce.”

  “But,” the oldster said, coming back to that abandoned wariness, “there’s a great chance that he’s none-so-subtly luring us out, like they tried to do with Chaplin last night.”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but why doesn’t he just bust on in here and attack if he means harm? Why put on such an elaborate ruse unless they really are offering a resolution?”

  From the way the others nodded, Gabriel knew that this had occurred to them, too.

  “Either way,” Sammy added, “I’ll be janxed if this is any kind of real memorial service for a creature they caught. From the way those jerks are partying out there, an execution would be more like it, and I don’t have the stomach for that.”

  “Yup.” The oldster finally met Gabriel’s gaze. “Make no mistake—Stamp’s here to drive home some kind of point. I only wonder if we refuse to come outside as he asks, how sharp that point’s gonna be.”

  Gabriel looked to the visz, where Stamp was standing, watching his men while he casually planted his hands on his hips. Despite his faults, the kid had it in him to be reasonable. But any relationship he did develop with this community would be on Stamp’s terms. He’d be the one defining what a good neighbor should be, as he’d proven during the previous house call.

  On the visz, Gabriel saw Stamp hailing a vehicle in the near distance, directing it into the monitor’s circle of vision. A rumbler, boasting a jetlike body held up by massive, thick, sawlike wheels that spit up dirt as it came to a spewing halt. Three men spil out, jumping from the heightened body to the ground, all of them in joyful spirits.

  Gabriel came closer to the group, and the Badlanders shifted, as if his very presence still unsettled them. But maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was the danger outside, and he was the only one who’d been able to get them to move.

  Zel spoke. “We need to decide what action to take. Now.”

  From a spot in the corner, Hana ducked out from under Pucci’s protective arm and wandered closer to the group, her wide brown gaze fixed on the visz. But Pucci latched onto the back of her robes, impeding her.

  At the same time, he put forward his idea for how the community should proceed. “Let Stamp tell us a little more about what’s happening, and then we can decide.”

  Hana glanced back at her man but didn’t contradict him.

  “Well,” the oldster said, “I seem to remember you were the one in favor of waving our own white flags in Stamp’s face. Shouldn’t we just go out there and pussify ourselves first off, Pucci?”

  The man seemed to bulk up even more under his brown shirt, lowering his head, using his heft as an imposing response. “Stamp’s got backup out there. So far, I’ve counted seven men as they’ve crossed the lens’s fields, and we don’t know if there’re even more out of range.”

  “So much for your career as a diplomat, Mr. Big Talk. . . .”

  While the oldster continued dealing out stings, Gabriel wondered what was keeping Mariah. He gravitated toward her quarters, arriving at the dark fringe of her room, where he was halted by the sound of her—the angry vital signs lulled by the peace he’d instilled. And it was the peace that seemed to draw a line from him to her, yet at the same time, it kept him calmer than he’d ever been, less hungry, more satisfied.

  “Mariah?” he asked.

  A pause. Then, “Still in here.”

  With a glance behind him to make sure no one was around, Gabriel stepped all the way inside her room, where the walls didn’t hold anything decorative, nothing that might hint at what Mariah liked, what kept her occupied during all this time under the ground.

  Maybe her weapons wall said the most, Gabriel thought, as he approached, finding her dressed in her regular attire. Lace-up cloth pants, boots, and a roomy white shirt.

  Fighting garb.

  But she didn’t look so ready to kick any ass while sitting on her bed, aiming at him a beaten look that he’d seen too much lately.


  “You know,” he said, “it’d be great to have someone stay below the ground to watch your visz bank, just to keep a wider eye on what Stamp has going on outside. The different camera angles might come in handy and keep at least one of us aware of the bigger picture so we can be warned about any planned surprises. I’d have my ears tuned for anything you’d have to tell us from your spot down here.”

  “Are you making an excuse for me to stay inside?”

  He’d done the same last night, when Chaplin had been taken, and, now, he saw that she suspected what he’d reluctantly thought she might be—the ultimate victim.

  Something broke inside him for her. “It’s not an excuse. The viszes would show us if any of Stamp’s men are infiltrating the community throughon room via a different outside entrance. That’s what they might do if they’re using this ‘memorial service’ as a distraction to take us over.”

  He didn’t really believe that; he still subscribed to the notion that Stamp would’ve just used surprise and force if he were bent on destruction.

  Mariah pushed a hand down her thigh. “I can’t stop thinking of how I went out there, far beyond my safe point, not even twenty-four hours ago. I did it just to prove to Chaplin—and myself—that I could. And I made it without bringing about any terrible consequences.”

  She looked as if she wanted to add something, but seemed to think better of it.

  “Yes,” he said, thinking only now that maybe Chaplin hadn’t been such a bully. “You did, Mariah.”

  “If you gave me some more peace, maybe I could—”

  He was already denying her, shaking his head. He’d known she was going to ask, but it was false courage, and she shouldn’t get too used to it.

  More unsettling, though, was the fact that he wanted her to remain inside, no matter how much he’d previously encouraged her to go out. And she should stay put until Stamp was taken care of. Then she could run around up there until the skies turned blue if she wanted to.

  “Indulge me this time,” he said. “Stay down here. No matter what your friends choose to do, I’ve already decided that I’m definitely going up top to see what Stamp has going on.”

  She stood. “Gabriel, tell me you’re not going to . . .”

  She gestured at her mouth, and he knew that she was indicating his fangs.

  “No,” he said.

  Her shoulders sank in obvious relief, and that made him tense up.

  “Don’t worry about my getting you and your friends in deeper trouble,” he said, sounding . . . what—wounded? It would make sense, especially after she’d brought out more than the possibility of humanity in him—she’d made him become temporarily alive with her hands on him, her heated imprint, her skin against his.

  All she was doing now was pointing out that he was still a vampire to her. She also did it every time she asked for more peace.

  He wished she didn’t know what he was, just like the other people in the community, who seemed to believe in him, not in the abilities that’d driven him into the Badlands.

  “I’m not going to need”—he gestured to his mouth, just as she’d done—“that. I plan to weapon up.”

  He turned around to leave, and after a second, he heard her follow, her steps deliberate. He didn’t know if it was because she was conflicted about her or him going outside.

  When he got back to the domain’s center, Zel, Sammy, and the oldster were gathered by the ladder, and even though it wasn’t obvious, Gabriel knew from the shape of their pants and shirts that they were hiding weapons.

  Pucci and Hana were gone.

  At seeing Gabriel, the oldster brightened as much as the circumstances allowed. “We’re down to the slim pickings of us because Pucci and Hana won’t have any part of our ‘madness.’ You could say I’m shocked beyond belief at that, but then you’d have to cut my suddenly grown nose right off.” Then, as if realizing what they were ut to undergo, he got serious. “We know Stamp’s not leaving, no matter what we do, and we need to get this out of the way. You with us?”

  “You know I am.”

  When Zel, Sammy, and the oldster shook Gabriel’s hand, it was with a true welcome to their family, as if he had finally earned his way in.

  Before he could feel too good about that, he sensed Mariah behind him, her presence a series of snaps over his flesh. Without acknowledging it, he grabbed a revolver from the wall, making sure it was loaded. Then he tucked it into the belt line of his trousers, pulling his shirt over the weapon.

  Zel pointed at Mariah. “You’re staying here?”

  There was no neighborly concern, just a matter of logistics. Gabriel wasn’t sure where Zel’s tone stemmed from.

  Mariah sighed, then retreated toward the viszes. “Yes, Zel, I’ll be down here.”

  Good to know he wasn’t the only one looking out for Mariah.

  “You know,” Gabriel said, indicating the ladder, “using this exit will give its location away.”

  Sammy said, “I suspect if they don’t know of it now, they soon will.”

  The oldster motioned to Zel. “You should stay below with Mariah and Chaplin.”

  Though the old guy would’ve hated to know it, he had a softness in his gaze, and Gabriel even thought that Zel recognized it before she pulled her hat onto her head and adjusted the strap beneath it.

  “If I didn’t know better,” she said gruffly, “I’d think you had some archaic notion of excluding females from holding down the fort. Surely I’m mistaken.”

  “That’s not it, Z—”

  “Move on it, oldster,” she said, taking the ladder first.

  As she climbed up, all business, Sammy followed, his expression grim. The oldster avoided Gabriel as he went up the ladder, too.

  Gabriel ascended just as Zel popped the entrance door open to the night and began to climb out. Though he didn’t look back, he felt Mariah’s gaze on him, and it made him think this meeting with Stamp was going to be okay, just as long as she was down there, secure with Chaplin by her side.

  As Gabriel exited, with the dusk-mellowed dragon’s-breath air greeting him, Zel shut the door while Stamp and his men stopped all their running around. They’d planted solar-powered lights, the sticks stabbed into the earth. In the distance, the whir of a second rumbler gnawed over the ground, louder and louder, and coupled with Stamp’s version of a welcoming smile, it raised Gabriel’s hackles.

  “Excellent,” the kid said, as if there were no hard feelings between any of them and he was happy to have them at his soiree. “I was hoping I’d get to apologize face-to-face for my misconceptions about your killing my men. I’m grateful for this opportunity to smooth the ground between us.”

  As four of Stamp’s crew gathered around, the gasping sound of their FlyShoes stilled. Thanks to the accoutrements, the guys—and even a couple of women—towered over Gabriel and the group as the white hankies went limp in the crew’s grips. The three others who’d arrived in the first rumbler ambled on over, too, minus the FlyShoes.

  Zel was tense, her fingers spread low on her hips, just under where Gabriel knasphe’d stowed her weapons.

  “I can speak for us all when I say we, in turn, appreciate the apology, Mr. Stamp,” she said. “Now we can be good neighbors, just as you wanted.”

  “Yes, we can.” As Stamp smiled, his fathomless eyes crinkled at the corners. But that smile did more to freeze than a glare would’ve. “And, as neighbors do, we wanted to share what we found sniffing around our place shortly after we discovered Cedric Orville dead a few hours before dawn. We figured you would want to know that this menace was taken care of. You’d warned us about the wildlife, and you were right, so we owe you at least this.”

  The whirring sound of the second rumbler got even louder as it chopped over a hill, mangling everything under its speedy path. Sparks shot from the wide wheels as it consumed rocks and bushes.

  While it pulled up a few yards from the group, the driver halted the vehicle, and two men alighted from it, their hands fu
ll with what, at first, seemed to be a shapeless form.

  Zel, Sammy, and the oldster drifted closer to Gabriel.

  The crew’s baggage became far more recognizable—a man wearing a black hood. After the crew set his feet on the ground, he stumbled while pulled along, his wrists, covered by the cuffs of his shirt, bound behind his back by some manner of gleaming substance, brassy in the reflection of the solar torches. He was wearing tattered clothing, as if it’d lasted him through a long, hard journey.

  A man? Gabriel thought. He’d been the scourge of the Badlands?

  Gabriel’s shoulders hunched as he felt the terrified energy from the others, their adrenaline racing through them and fluttering their heartbeats, the scent of fear and bewilderment in the air.

  The crewmen were heading for Stamp with the hooded captive, but the kid held up a hand to stop them about ten yards away. Disdain slashed over his otherwise smooth, young face.

  Gabriel couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “That’s a man, not a . . . thing.”

  Stamp turned his gaze on Gabriel, but when he talked, it was to his employees.

  “Truss him up,” he said, his voice without inflection.

  And his heartbeat was the same, Gabriel realized. As flat as a projectile’s course.

  The crew seemed tickled to be taking part in such a job. One man wrapped more brasslike cable around the hooded one’s pants-shrouded ankles, and the captive tried to fight as other crew members jumped over to spike three long stakes into the ground, which they crossed at the top. Another guy wearing elevated FlyShoes was up high enough to lash the poles together.

  Then they turned the hooded man upside down and handed him up, ankles first, so that the employee with the FlyShoes could tie the captive’s cords to the apex of the poles.

  An execution. Wasn’t that what Sammy had said?

  Gabriel leaned a little closer to Stamp. Not near enough to let the kid sense a lack of scent about him or to feel the absence of warmth from his skin. Just enough to whisper in a rough voice.

  “Is this necessary?”

  At Gabriel’s proximity, there was a bump in Stamp’s heartbeat. Otherwise, he remained unruffled, only offering another smile.