Nightshade City

by Hilary Wagner

  “ ‘Made it through’?” said Juniper. He moved towards Vincent and put his paw on his shoulder. “You mean you didn’t know how your family died? You were never told?”

  “Told what?” asked Vincent.

  Vincent watched Juniper’s contented face contort, draining of its usual humor, his tone now deadly sober. “I don’t believe this. In all this time, no one’s told you? I suppose everyone in the Catacombs assumed you knew.” Juniper paused for a moment, trying to think of the right words, trying to be soft. “I don’t know exactly how to put this. I honestly had no idea you and your brother were unaware, no idea at all. Vincent, your family died, but not as a consequence of the Great Flood. They were murdered—eliminated. You and Victor were spared because of the flood. You were the two they couldn’t find that night.”

  Vincent’s insides turned to watery knots. “Who couldn’t find us?”

  “Vincent, Billycan and his majors killed your entire family. They followed you all Topside. Killdeer ordered the executions himself. Billycan convinced him the entire Nightshade Clan was too tainted, too loyal to Trilok, and the new establishment would never get the citizens’ full support with your family still alive in the Catacombs. Billycan hated your father. Born with a pure heart, Julius was the exact opposite of Billycan in every way, even down to his raven fur. Simply put, Billycan got rid of a problem. Despite the deadly floodwaters, Billycan returned Topside with the sole purpose of slaughtering your mother and father, while his cohorts, now his high majors, finished off your siblings, using the flood as their cover. Your family never stood a chance. You and Victor were the two they couldn’t locate, swept away by the force of the flood. A rat who survived the flood saw you. She said you swam the entire way with Victor holding on to your neck, managing to find your way back to the Catacombs. Do you remember that?”

  Vincent’s voice deadened. “Yes, I remember,” he said. “Victor screamed and cried the whole way.”

  “After that, you and Victor remained unharmed because of my brother, Barcus. Billycan brought him in front of Killdeer shortly after your family’s killing. Killdeer told my brother that Billycan would kill his wife and children in the same manner as your family if Barcus did not openly support Killdeer and the new Ministry. Barcus had no choice but to comply, agreeing to show no further resistance, but he agreed on one condition. He insisted that the two remaining Nightshade children remain untouched. Killdeer agreed. What harm could two scrawny boys of four and eight do? They allowed my brother to live to show their subjects that the new High Ministry could show mercy, even to a Trilok Loyalist. Killdeer would not allow Barcus to take you in or have further contact with you. Luckily, you boys had your guardian. All this time I thought you’d been sent to the army—if only I’d known.

  “Sadly, Barcus and his family still lost their lives to the hands of cruel fate, taken only one year later by the second wave of the Great Flood. They had gone Topside in search of Stipend when the second wave hit Trillium. It had been very cold. My niece, Clover, about your age now, stayed behind with a case of the sniffles, asleep in the Catacombs—safe. She is Barcus’s only child left. She too shares you and your brother’s heartache, the heartache of a thousand children.”

  Vincent stared vacantly at the floor. He could no longer speak. His face grew wet with tears. Juniper inched closer. “Vincent, look at me.” Vincent slowly lifted his head. “You are a rat now, not a youth. You deserve to know what your family died for and what the name Nightshade still stands for. You and I have both suffered great loss. I have but one frightened niece. You have but one young brother. We need to take back what is ours, if not for ourselves, then for them and for all the rats in the Catacombs who are too afraid to defend themselves. They are but innocents in this whole toxic affair.”

  After not having shed a single tear in eleven years, Vincent now sobbed into Juniper’s shoulder. Then slowly he got up and wiped the tears from his face. He stood tall, his eyes bright with new resolve. The black rat knew what had to be done.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hard-Core Beliefs

  IT WAS MORNING. Billycan lurched anxiously in his slanted gait, pacing about Killdeer’s den. The Minister was missing from his silver roost. “Where is he?” grumbled Billycan. He scowled as he pondered Killdeer’s probable whereabouts, perhaps off having a bath—marinating like a sodden pork belly, immersed in flowery water—or some comparable absurdity. Billycan never indulged himself. It goaded him that Killdeer required such pampering, a grown rat that needed to be fussed over and mollycoddled—it was disgraceful.

  He cursed the air. Killdeer’s hedonistic urges were getting in the way of his duties. Billycan controlled the Catacombs. Killdeer merely viewed from afar, an absentee landlord. Billycan hadn’t seen Killdeer pick up a weapon since the days of the Bloody Coup. The Minister had grown flabby and indolent, a far cry from the destructive force he’d been eleven years ago. In his current state Killdeer could never have conquered Trilok. Billycan found it odd, even when they’d lived Topside, scrounging for food, dwelling in the Topsiders’ filthy sewers and alleys, that Killdeer had always felt entitled. Strange, in those grim circumstances.

  Billycan never forgot his past. How could he forget being shot in the spine daily with painful metal needles, brusquely tossed back into his cold, plastic cage—number How could he not recall the steady throbbing in his head or the dry, blue kibble forced down his throat? It tasted odd and left him feeling as if his belly were twisted in knots, but still wanting more, eternally unable to satisfy his appetite.

  Billycan never had a family—he came into the world alone, raised in a cage. He knew only one rat in his youth, a diminutive stippled rat named Dorf, housed next to him in the lab. Dorf taught him to speak. He taught him a lot of things. Astonished at the pace at which he learned, Dorf fed young Billycan as much information as possible. The white rat remembered every utterance, word for word.

  Dorf had been a pet at a Topsider academy, residing in the history room. A poorly paid janitor stole him and sold him to the lab. Sitting through years of history lessons, Dorf knew everything on the subject, sharing his knowledge with his albino neighbor. This is how Billycan learned the ways of war, military strategy, and combat techniques. He learned that leaders took what they wanted, using deadly weapons, lies, torture, even infesting enemy camps with fatal illness. Dorf’s innocent teachings became for Billycan hard-core beliefs.

  About six months after Dorf befriended Billycan, the spotted rat simply vanished. When Billycan came back from his daily shot of green fluid, Dorf’s cage lay vacant, his tiny friend gone, his scent replaced by bleach. He heard two Topsider lab techs talking about it later that day.

  The female technician, a homely woman with glasses who strongly resembled a giraffe, asked her lab associate of Dorf’s whereabouts. “What happened to number 112?”

  “Little bugger couldn’t handle the meds. He came into the program too late, and at his size, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did,” replied the other tech, a pudgy, balding fellow. “This drug is powerful stuff. The rats keep eating and eating without any weight gain. In fact, most of them have lost weight. Their length has shot through the charts.” He pointed at Billycan’s cage. “Look how long that one’s gotten. He’s a brute, that fellow. Wear your safety gloves if you handle him. Many of them should have died of old age by now or multiple brain seizures, but they just keep going. No one expected this. I told my wife about the rats’ weight loss, and can you believe she asked me to bring home a vial of the stuff for her? She wanted to lose a few pounds before her sister’s wedding. She pitched a fit when I told her no. Can you imagine that?”

  The male tech gazed up at the giraffe eagerly, then continued. “I told her this drug is meant for depression. Weight loss is just a side effect. Once she learned the other effects of the serum, the frenzied behavior, the fits of uncontrollable violence, she thought I saved her life. Funny how that works,” he said. He grinned proudly at his long-necked colleagu
e, who seemed entirely unmoved by his heroics. “No matter how many times they reformulate, nothing improves. The rats we’ve paired together have killed each other. We’ve been instructed to destroy the albinos next week. They seem to be the most vicious. I suppose their inbreeding would have a great deal to do with that. This drug will never get approval. At least I hope not.”

  The following week an animal rights group broke into the lab and freed the rats. Word had gotten out of the lab’s testing and their inhumane treatment of the animals. Activists thought it obscene that these poor creatures were being tormented so that humans could get a grip on their depression.

  The freed rats ran wild in Trillium’s streets. Most died. Few of the escapees knew anything of the Topsiders’ world and were quickly run over, poisoned, or broke their necks in traps placed all over the city by animal control.

  After breaking free of his captors, Billycan began to feel much stronger. His headaches stopped and his stomach problems dwindled, although his ceaseless hunger remained a permanent side effect.

  Seeing his cloudy red eyes and his muddied white fur stained with dried blood from the beasts he killed for food, most predators kept their distance from Billycan. Those who challenged him met their deaths swiftly.

  Weeks after winning his freedom, he turned a corner in an alley on yet another scramble for food. Before him stood a huge rat being backed into a corner by a grimy feline. Dorf had told Billycan of the dangers of cats. Billycan sized up the cat; the bony animal stared hungrily at the large gray rat, desperate for food. Hounds were typically more of a threat than cats. Many a feline had been killed in the grasp of a Trillium rat, but feral and frenzied, this particular cat was not one to take for granted.

  Suddenly, the oversized gray rat lashed forward, thrashing the cat squarely in the nose, drawing blood. Billycan reacted in kind, jabbing the tabby in the belly. With his spiny claws he pulled downward, gutting it. The cat howled in pain and dropped to the asphalt with a thump, dead.

  The gray rat stood, slightly shocked, mostly impressed. He wasn’t sure if Billycan had helped him or had eyed him for a kill, and going by Billycan’s bizarre exterior, he wasn’t quite sure if he was even a rat. He had never seen a rat the color of winter. A little alarmed at Billycan’s killing prowess, Killdeer warily yet warmly addressed him. “Many thanks, my unique-looking friend. You have spared me from being that filthy feline’s evening meal.”

  Cocking his head, Billycan stared at the rat, unsure how to reply.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the hefty rat. “My name is Killdeer, and you, my friend, look rather hungry.”

  Undaunted, Killdeer slowly moved closer to the dirty white rat. “Let’s go find you something to eat, eh? My associates and I have more grub than we need. We take what we want; no garbage picking for us. You don’t look like the sort for picking through trash either—you’re far too stately for that.” Killdeer chuckled. “Let’s be on our way, shall we?”

  Billycan looked at the dead cat, not wanting to leave the fresh meat. His mouth salivated as the body’s aroma hit his snout. “Oh, no!” said Killdeer, seeing his ravenous eyes. “You don’t want that disease-ridden thing rotting in your gut. You’ll end up riddled with worms. Come on, we’ll fix you up with some real meat.” Billycan followed Killdeer out of the alley. The dubious friendship began.

  Killdeer showed Billycan how the criminal set operated Topside. Billycan took to thievery and murder as if born to it, effortlessly killing rats and other creatures, taking what he wanted without a shred of remorse. Even Killdeer was staggered by Billycan’s degenerate nature, but happy for it all the same. Billycan grew exceedingly protective of Killdeer. No rat came within a yard of him without Billycan’s say-so.

  Billycan’s fanatical devotion, shrewdness, and sheer love of the kill made him invaluable to Killdeer, who quickly made him his second-in-command. Soon their adversaries were more terrified of Billycan than of Killdeer.

  Loyalty, thought Billycan. From the day they’d met, he’d been nothing but loyal to Killdeer. They were on the brink of losing everything if their subjects continued to escape, and it seemed Killdeer was not concerned in the slightest. Where was his loyalty? Billycan grunted, pacing around Killdeer’s throne in a crooked circle as if the ritual might conjure him up.

  “Collector,” barked Killdeer, breaking Billycan from his thoughts. Killdeer sauntered in, looking as though he’d just woken up from a nap.

  “Finally you’ve returned,” Billycan said.

  “What’s got you so wound up?” asked Killdeer. “It looks as though you’ve left a permanent tread mark in the ground.” Killdeer snickered as he regarded the warped trail circling his throne.

  Billycan kept pacing. “Minister, we have more problems. As you are well aware, Lithgo reported the missing families from his sector. Now High Majors Foiber and Schnauss are reporting similar accounts. Hundreds of families now remain unaccounted for. I’m still waiting for the sector majors to report in, but it doesn’t look promising. I’m sure once I hear from all of them, the number will grow.”

  Killdeer plopped down in his throne and stretched leisurely. Packed with food and wine, his only interests at the moment involved sleep and silence. “What of it, Collector?”

  “As suspected, the worst is happening. These families are fleeing, but to where we do not know. Unless they’ve gone Topside for good, which I highly doubt, given the perils, the only answer is somewhere under the Reserve. The Topsiders’ new construction is complete. The soil is freshly tilled, easy to excavate and dig out an entirely new city. Minister, we’ve earned our titles. How are we to keep them without a city to oversee?” Billycan halted in his tracks and looked pointedly at Killdeer. “These meager figures may mean nothing to us in the current scheme of things, but if our numbers dwindle further, our Stipend will as well. We will all feel the brunt, especially the army. We will no longer be able to provide for our troops. In that case, we will have an angry mob of greedy, hungry soldiers to deal with. Hunger will overpower their fear of us. The sector majors will not be able to handle a mutiny of that size. Billycan fears the Ministry is at serious risk.”

  Killdeer sank down further in his throne. He looked crossly at Billycan, creasing his thick brow like a child pouting over a mother’s scolding. “Who is left from Trilok’s reign? Who of his Loyalists are still alive?” he asked.

  Billycan tapped his chin, thinking. “No one of any importance is left, to Billycan’s knowledge. The players of note are long gone, and Nightshade and his family are dead—barring the two boys. The little cowards escaped Topside a few days back. Lithgo says the scrawny brats are nothing but mangy pests. I’m sure they’ll be dead soon enough, if not already.”

  Billycan again began to pace. A low growl emanated from the back of his throat as he considered the remainder of the Belancort Clan. “The Trilok Loyalists are nothing more than the stuff of folklore and fable. Trilok is decaying in his grave—his avengers with him. Barcus and Juniper are dead and buried. Long back, the majors searched high and low for their little band of troublemakers, the Council,” he sneered contemptuously. “They were unable to find hide nor hair of them, and presumed them dead or wasting away somewhere Topside. The only Belancorts left are that decaying rat Timeron and of course our little Clover. Timeron may have both feet in the grave, but still, there is something about him, and I do not trust her in the least. She is a shifty one. I know it.”

  “She’s a harmless girl,” said Killdeer. “You think too highly of her cunning.”

  Billycan chuckled. Maybe he was giving a mere child too much credit. “I didn’t agree at first, but your strategy of naming little Clover a Chosen One has its merits. Your subjects will feel comforted to know their Minister has bonded with the daughter of a Trilok Loyalist, even a dead one, although I doubt that alone will deter them from fleeing.”

  Killdeer slumped sideways on his throne and scratched his backside. All this talk of subversion and dead Loyalists annoyed h
im, as did Billycan’s perpetually nagging voice. “Double every sector’s troops. Have each exit corridor manned by three armed soldiers. No one is to leave the Catacombs till the Grand Speech has been given. After I put the fear back into them, none of my subjects will dare try to flee. Have the Mistress of the Robes personally escort the Belancort girl to the speech. I want no surprises. Have Catacomb Hall cleaned and brilliantly adorned for the occasion, and make sure every soldier of the Kill Army is accounted for. If they are not manning a post, they will be in attendance at the speech. No exceptions—none.”

  Killdeer reached for his wine. Billycan’s eyes rolled in disapproval as he watched Killdeer drain half the bottle. The Minister’s daily need for the drink disgusted him.

  Killdeer took another swig, finishing the contents. “Texi, get in here!” he yelled, grimacing at the empty bottle.

  Billycan watched the Minister stretch languidly in his throne. Killdeer did not leap into action at whisperings of sedition as Billycan had hoped. This troubled him. Billycan’s misgivings about the Minister’s abilities were mounting.

  The High Collector had continued to support the Minister in spite of his numerous flaws. But Billycan could not allow the Minister’s idleness to turn the Catacombs into a graveyard of abandoned corridors. Ultimately Billycan would have to make a decision.

  He heard Texi’s feet pattering down the corridor. Her chipper disposition and cheerful smile irked him no end. He took his leave.

  A sturdy young guard had been placed outside Clover’s door. Everyone knew of her new title as Chosen One, and Billycan refused to see her slip from under his watch. The embarrassment to the Ministry would be epic. The guard, Suttor, stood at rigid attention. He looked similar to Cole, Juniper’s spotted councilman, but his black and white spots were wider, more of a bovine pattern. His face was divided by the two hues, each eye surrounded by the contrasting color.