He probably means his was nicer, Sarah thought. And she was inclined to agree, even though she’d never met him.
His own admission of this must’ve unshackled something from him. Because he walked toward the stairs. “Is Skunk still laughing?”
Chapter 5
Sarah informed the guard they were ready to see the mayor. This time, he and two other guards escorted them with a tight grip on their shoulders. They carried a formal look, in their white khakis, long black socks, and neat grey shirts, that made her feel like she was being disciplined for being late to class.
They didn’t walk far. They just continued up the road, ten or so houses beyond the bazaar. And Sarah noticed the massive structure that resided at the end of the street, a wrought iron gate and hedges surrounding it.
Once, her textbook showed photos of the White House, the home of the president of the United States. Or at least the way it had looked before the Shroud War. This resembled that, but with more arches and columns leading up to the front entrance. And smaller too. A grass and brick walkway led to a heavy set of steps before the front door.
Armed guards with orange turbans and thick mustaches patrolled the premises. While the men flashed them dirty looks, they passed peacocks that didn’t mind their presence at all.
They entered through an open portion of the gate and started up the paved walkway. Gentle chatter and soft, uplifting music carried along the grounds. Sarah had done such a good job convincing Hamiad there was nothing to worry about, she’d never really thought much of their punishment herself. But now, seeing the palace the mayor spent his time in, she couldn’t imagine him taking the whole cow-mutilation thing lightly. The humidity, the smell of spices and grass, and the gleaming, jeweled sculptures of humans with six arms or five heads or an elephant’s head all overwhelmed her in their foreignness. Her mom always said the strange sights were something you got used to over time and with exposure.
Their escorting guards spoke to those at the bottom of the steps in that same language from before. Her mom had introduced her to a few languages, but after marrying Tobias, his teaching her Nebirian took priority. And it consumed a lot of her time. But now she thought she at least recognized the language as Hindi.
A middle-aged man with a light complexion, brown hair, and a black suit with a blue tie approached them.
“Hello there,” he said, pronouncing his “there” as “dere.” “I am Samir. The mayor of this village.”
He shook each of their hands one by one and gestured for them to follow him. “You three have caused a lot of trouble for being here such a short time. Your drill sergeant said you were from a city that hated the Naga. So I couldn’t understand why you would go and carry out a sin that was last committed by a Naga.”
Sarah couldn’t see what he was getting at.
“Please. It was an honest mistake,” Hamiad said. “I didn’t—”
Samir cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I don’t care how sorry you are. Breaking certain sacred laws around here cannot go unpunished. But we will get to that in a moment.”
He stopped, and they saw why. They were staring at a statue of a bare-chested blue man in orange pants, holding a flute.
“Like you, Krishna was a prankster,” Samir said to Hamiad. “But he respected cattle.”
Comparing Hamiad to a god. That would set him straight.
“What’s so special about cattle?” Skunk asked.
Samir gave a stunned frown.
“We believe all life is sacred.”
Samir let his words sink in as he walked on. “The last time we had a cow-mutilation case was before the Shroud War.”
“The Anunnaki,” Skunk said, now sober. “They mutilated cows before the War as a way to wipe out our primary meat source.”
Samir nodded as they stopped at a circular patch of bright yellow and red flowers. “You know your history better than me. I had to look up the last case of cow mutilation in Utbashi in our records. The punishment is simple. The responsible party is to gather a flower that grows only among the hills where tigers hunt. If the flower is picked successfully, the cow’s death is considered blessed and meant to be.” He mimed it by plucking a yellow flower off the collection and letting it drop to the dirt. “If not, the tigers do a good job of carrying out justice. We’ve lost plenty of men to them over the years.”
He crushed the flower under his boot. Sarah narrowed her eyes at him, the late afternoon sun sharpening against her skin. “Do we at least get rifles?”
Samir smiled knowingly and shook his head. “I believe that would be taking fate out of the gods’ hands. I’ll let you decide when you’d prefer to leave. If you go now, you’ll reach the hills by dusk. The tigers are more active then, but the sooner you return, the better chances your friends will have.”
Hamiad clenched his fists.
“What do you mean?”
“While our water can heal, it has its limits. After a time, injuries become permanent. I would imagine if those in the hospital aren’t healed by tomorrow morning, their scars will stay with them forever.”
Sarah crossed her arms, trying not to think about her brother with lifelong burn marks on his face. “If you can heal them, why didn’t you do it already?”
“It would be odd if thirty injured suddenly regained full strength in so short a time. Instead, I had asked the doctor to offer periodic drinks of the holy water to you. To reduce suspicions as to our fountain. Too many travelers pass through this village for me to be reckless with its usage.”
“Say we pick the flower, and you heal everyone. What happens after that?”
“There is a train that comes by this area once a week. We could easily have your friends ready to go by tomorrow evening when it arrives.”
Chapter 6
Sarah watched the ox-pulled-cart spot shrink in the dimming distance. She wondered if the two women who’d brought them here had even a little concern for them.
This whole thing felt wrong. If the firestorm hadn’t hit New Bagram, Sarah would’ve been preparing for the Feast of Endeavors. Sure, that meant she’d have to spend the night with her stepdad and Mitchell, but it ranked far above trekking through tiger territory in a forest she’d never known existed until they reached it a couple of hours ago.
“We better get started,” Hamiad said, lifting up their kerosene lamp. Samir was generous enough to give them that. Even if they couldn’t stop a tiger’s lunge, they could watch it devour them.
She turned to him and the ravine they overlooked. The dirt exuded a barrenness despite the skinny trees and patches of brush. Parts of the ravine were barely visible in the low light of dusk. How much longer until full nightfall hit?
They worked their way down a safer-looking part of the slope and grabbed sticks off the ground. It brought nothing even close to the comfort a gun or a knife would’ve. She tossed the stick and drew out her knife instead. Somehow that didn’t comfort her as much as she expected.
Birds chirped and ruffled their feathers in the trees; bugs buzzed and swarmed in the thick, humid air. A roar echoed across the ravine. On instinct, the three of them merged together.
“One of us should stay turned around. Tigers are stalkers. They won’t attack if they know we can see them coming,” Hamiad said, eyes darting at the smallest movement of the trees or brush.
“I’ll take the rear,” Skunk said.
They skirted around a copse of trees. Sarah searched for any signs of movement. Dozens of insects flitted through the air, though, and she couldn’t distinguish motion in the darkness beyond. She listened hard, hoping for the running water of a stream. Instead, she heard a cacophony of birdcalls.
“Let’s try here,” Hamiad said, gesturing to the thicket of brush and trees ahead.
“Samir told us it would be in water,” Sarah said. “We should go around.”
“You never know. There might be a pool there,” Hamiad grumbled.
Sarah slapped at a gnat.
“O
r there could be a tiger waiting for us.”
That pulled him up short.
“Fine,” he said finally. “We’ll stay out of the brush until we hear water.”
They veered around the thicket. Even though they needed to find the lotus, she found herself staring at the knife in her hands. The blade seemed as foreign to her as this country. She’d held on to it ever since her father died. But she’d never used it before. Never had to.
At first, it stayed in her bedroom shelf. Just a sad relic of her dad.
Shortly after they moved into Tobias’s house, the knife became more.
One night she sat in her room, finishing a math worksheet for homework. She had three problems left. Fourth-grade long division.
A faint banging noise broke her concentration. She put her pencil down and listened. Her mom was talking with the neighbor outside. Krem was out with Johnny. That left Tobias in his study. Her mom had asked that she and Krem keep an eye on him when they moved in. Sarah had seen him slipping into flashbacks sometimes at the dinner table or on the couch. His eyes would grow unfocused, and his breath would shorten. So she thought to check on him.
His banging and grunting echoed all the way down the hall. Like he was fighting someone. She opened her window and shouted to her mom. Without bothering to confirm she’d heard, she stepped out of her bedroom and edged toward Tobias’s study.
“Tobias?”
She knocked. There was a loud bang and then silence. She pressed her ear to the door and heard only heavy breathing. Maybe he’d injured himself somehow. That in mind, she pushed the door ajar.
It was the first time she’d been inside. Pictures of Anunnaki, a red planet, jewels, and newspaper clippings decorated the walls. A telescope sat by the window. A few papers littered the ground, bent or torn. In the midst, Tobias lay slumped over his desk, glaring at her with maniacal eyes.
And he charged at her, old, but large. Before she knew it, his hands wrapped around her neck and squeezed. She gagged, the room spinning around her. As oxygen seeped out of her brain, the horror of helplessness replaced it. She discovered that screaming was impossible, and full panic set in. Black spots hovered in her vision, Tobias’s mask of rage all the more frightening.
Someone gave a shrill scream. And then her mother forced her way between her and Tobias. The neighbor, a combat instructor, peeled Tobias’s arms off Sarah, and she hit the ground, her lungs begging for air.
She spent the next two days in New Bagram’s infirmary, replaying the scene in her mind. Her mother came by and explained that Tobias mistook her for an Anunnaki. Because of a post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered from the Shroud War.
For the first time, Sarah thought about that knife as more than just her real dad’s heirloom. She wanted it with her. She couldn’t imagine being alone with Tobias again. He’d clutched her neck so tightly, he left her with cuts.
For months after that, her mom never left the two of them alone together. But the banging from that small room didn’t stop. Sarah just learned to stay away. Sometimes she’d hear her mom and the neighbors managing him, though. Managing. That’s how her mom said it. Oh, this bruise is nothing. It happened when we managed your father.
When he’d zone out at dinner and on the couch, simply saying his name snapped him out of his daze. But his study always triggered his flashbacks. Given this, she couldn’t understand why he filled his days in there.
Every time she’d hear Tobias losing it, she would clutch her knife and hold it close to her body. Remind herself of combat techniques she was starting to learn. In case.
A deep guttural roar stretched over several long seconds. Sarah, Hamiad, and Skunk paused and scanned the vicinity. The sky was near black, stars arching across it. No one could say what lurked twenty feet ahead—or in the brush, for that matter.
Hamiad adjusted the lamp. Somehow Sarah didn’t feel it helped. Yes, she could see the jungle better, but it didn’t burn off the cold dread.
She slapped a mosquito off her wrist. Suddenly the itches tingled along her arms and legs. The insects must’ve bitten her a lot by now. Once her biology teacher, Mr. Stanton, said mosquitoes only showed up near water. Would they find a lotus soon?
For a split second everything lit up. She blinked, a ghostly afterglow of the trees and the sky lurking at the edges of her vision. Lightning?
In unison they looked up at the cloudless sky, waiting for the thunder that never came.
“Hamiad,” Skunk whispered.
“Yeah,” he said edgily.
“A snake hole, right?” Sarah said. A snake hole was a sort of Earth-based warping system for the Anunnaki. They were silent, but they gave off bright flashes.
“Where was it?” Skunk said.
“Turn off the lamp,” Sarah hissed.
Hamiad did, and complete darkness swallowed them into an abyss of insects, tigers, and Anunnaki.
“How’d they know we were here?” Skunk whispered.
“Maybe a drone was patrolling,” Hamiad said.
A wave of tiger growls sounded off so loud Sarah began sweeping her gaze across the trees. But nothing came.
“I’m thinking we should turn the lamp back on,” Skunk said.
A series of whines answered him. They were pulse surges. Anunnaki palm-based weapons. She remembered the school videos and crouched.
Under the starlight, Sarah could see a group of boulders down the ravine. Staccatos of pulse surges and roars played off each other, answering each other back and forth. All past the boulders. Sarah envisioned a struggle. Could the tigers be attacking the Anunnaki, mistaking them for food? She prayed they wiped each other out.
But the commotion dwindled to an alarmed call. After a second, her ears detected Nebirian. Help me. I’m not an enemy.
A woman’s voice. A female Anunnaki, rather.
“The Anunnaki’s in trouble,” Sarah said, tightening the grip on her knife. Somehow, the Anunnaki seemed to instill a sense of responsibility in her with that. Abandoning the Anunnaki to die was probably the smarter move. But it wasn’t the right thing to do. Plus, the Anunnaki would’ve scanned the area and seen them, anyway. If they really wanted to capture them, running wasn’t going to accomplish anything. More would arrive soon. If they saved this Anunnaki, they could at least show goodwill.
“She needs our help,” Sarah said, realizing she’d called the Anunnaki “she” instead of “it.”
“You can’t be serious,” Hamiad said. “It’s probably trying to lure us in.”
“Why would she go through all that effort?” Sarah said. “Let’s help her, and maybe she can help us.”
Obviously they wouldn’t be picking lotus flowers side by side with the Anunnaki, but pulse surges would come in handy against tigers.
Hamiad nodded reluctantly and lit the lamp. They marched over dirt and rocks, eyes flicking to every shadow and twig or bush that wavered under the lamp’s glow.
The Nebirian screams served as their rallying point. She couldn’t help comparing the pained sounds to the commotion Tobias would make when he went through his fits. The thought knotted her stomach.
The sight of striped masses strewn across the dirt ahead sent a surge of shock from her face downward like acid. Slain tigers. Yet, peeking over the boulder, her heart drummed in her ears at the possibility that one might rise. In the dim lighting, she couldn’t rule out that one could still be breathing.
A rush of the Anunnaki’s cries reached her. Please. We are here.
She jumped at the closeness. The Anunnaki couldn’t be more than forty feet away. Down the stretch of the trail, she saw her. No. Them. Their silvery clothes reflected their lamp’s glow, revealing two ghastly giants. Even at this distance their size was apparent. One lay on the ground. The other was hunched over it protectively.
A raw fear gripped her there. Instincts telling her to stay away as if the Anunnaki were actually a tiger, staring back at them with a gaping jaw. The shrieks of pain faded into moaning.
&nb
sp; “We’ll go help it,” she said. She didn’t know if she was telling them or asking them.
“You’ve got the knife. Lead the way,” Hamiad said, on edge.
Sarah focused on her knife for a moment and thought about her real dad. Thought about how this knife protected her from her stepdad. She’d never used it against him. Because she never ended up at his mercy again. For that reason, she considered the knife her good luck charm in New Bagram. And hoped it would be here too.
She forced herself out from behind the boulder an inch. Then a few more inches. Insects and night birds filled the gaps between moans from the Anunnaki. No tiger growls, though.
Little by little, she made a path around the slain tigers to the Anunnaki. The black gleam of its eye visors stirred an unsettling sensation in her, like looking at a tarantula up close. She knew it wouldn’t hurt her, but it was freakish all the same.
My friend is hurt. Please, they injured him badly.
The Anunnaki sounded weak.
Sarah called upon her Nebirian, trying to think of the best response. How much did this Anunnaki know about them? Was she hunting them because they were New Bagram refugees? Or was this a mix-up?
Sarah saw only the two Anunnaki. Taking a deep breath to ready her throat for a Nebirian high-pitched screech, she watched the Anunnaki sway and collapse.
She rushed down to the Anunnaki. Five stripes of torn flesh on its skull must’ve come from a tiger’s claw. But the worst was the bleeding wound raked across its stomach. How could a tiger tear through Anunnaki body armor? Unless this wasn’t body armor, but just normal wear for them.
“Are they dead?” Sarah wondered aloud.
Hamiad checked the other Anunnaki’s pulse and nodded.
Sarah frowned and touched her hand to the chest of the Anunnaki that had only just fallen. She was still breathing, but she’d lost a lot of blood. The tiger hugged the ground a few feet away, its head cast at an impossible angle. Even so, she could sense its formidableness. A formidableness she didn’t want to know from a living tiger.
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