by Sean Platt
“What?” Meyer said.
“From the Nile to the pipes,” Jabari said, “every drop of water in Ember Flats has turned to blood.”
CHAPTER 13
“Clara!”
Clara was stopped in the middle of a street filled with commotion, people running hither and yon around her as if she was invisible. Her ears were perked, listening for something she’d almost — but not quite — heard. There were so many voices in her head already; adding Nick and Ella’s wasn’t too big a deal. But this was different. Like it was someone who mattered a lot, calling her home.
Nick came and took her by the arm. Clara didn’t shake him away, but her muscles seemed to do something that baffled his grip. It was like she was a big inert dummy and he was making the mistake of grabbing her like a seven-year-old human girl.
“Clara! What are you doing?”
Clara’s concentration broke. The summons or call or whisper or whatever it was had faded the way desert radio broadcasts always did while on the move. It was a lonely sensation in the desert and struck Clara that way now: something anchoring her to a place or a person, dissolving like mist.
She looked at Nick, his face so very urgent. Non-Lightborn citizens of Ember Flats were streaking by on both sides, many with red hands, red fronts, even red hair and faces. None of the three children knew what had happened — but Clara, at least, kept wanting to tell the frightened, crimson-covered people that what they thought was happening actually wasn’t, and that they needn’t be afraid.
At least not yet.
“I thought I heard something.” Clara was still trying to focus, hoping to pluck the voice or sound or whatever it had been from between human shouts in the panicked streets. Whatever it was, she felt desperate for more. It was like a song she couldn’t place, or a face once seen and mostly forgotten. She didn’t know what she’d heard or which slot it occupied in her mind. She only knew it was somehow meaningful or precious, and that she longed to hear it again.
But it was still gone, and Nick pulling for her to get out of the traffic was impeding her concentration.
“You didn’t hear anything?” she asked.
“Same thing we heard back at that house,” Nick said. “You really want to be out here with all these people after that?”
Clara thought back to the mental klaxon — the one that had sent them running for the Lightborn Hideout, wherever and whatever that was. It had been like a siren in their heads, but that hadn’t been the scariest thing. Clara was freaked out because it was closer to an alert than a warning. She had this weird sense that it wasn’t meant for human ears (or brains) at all. It had the feel of Astrals calling to other Astrals: “Hey, wake up, you aliens … it’s time.”
But time for what?
Not for this laughable horror show. Clara knew it was all supposed to be terribly frightening, but it just wasn’t. Seeing people cavort around covered in goo wasn’t scarier than the old supposedly scary movies she’d seen on any of the jukes she’d ever had access to. Splash a bunch of red stuff around, and everyone screams. It wasn’t real blood. Looked like it, smelled like it, probably even tasted like it for the folks who went for cups of water without turning on a light. But Clara could tell the difference.
No, that klaxon had meant something else was coming. Something the Astrals maybe didn’t want the humans to know about just yet.
“Come on. You seem cool and all, but we’ll leave you behind if we have to.” Nick smiled a little when he said it, but Clara wondered if that might be true. She could see fear in his eyes and hear it in their shared thoughts, and that fear had nothing to do with horror show. It was about something wicked that had yet to reveal itself: something involving the blood, but not the blood itself.
Clara let herself be led. She moved to the side of the street, out of the flow of shouting, rushing people. She and Nick joined Ella, and they tucked back so they wouldn’t be trampled. In front of them, people were fleeing left and right. There was no true bearing in the chaos. It was unadulterated panic, and the only direction any of these people seemed to be headed was away.
“What was it, Clara?” Ella asked.
Clara watched the girl’s curious, dark brown eyes, wondering what it meant that even her two Lightborn friends hadn’t heard …
Hadn’t heard …
Clara flexed her mind, still trying to hear the presence that had appeared so suddenly and vanished so soon. But it was gone.
It had the feeling of wanting to lead her but hadn’t seemed to know how. It was reluctant and afraid, yet made her feel bold. It had been as scared as she was but felt stubborn enough to bully past its ignorance and lead anyway.
It was friendly. Comforting. A safe presence she felt used to following.
Sort of like Mr. Cameron.
CHAPTER 14
In the middle of watching Meyer jam an oversized hiking backpack full of food and water and assorted gear, Piper felt a sudden, crushing need to cry. The feeling came out of the blue. But she had no choice, if she wanted to remain upright, other than to sit and let it come. So she did, and it washed over her, and Piper’s eyes watered without her having any idea why.
She looked up. Nobody was paying her any mind. The room’s attention was squarely on Meyer (who was shouting orders like his old self, though without the harsh edge), Kindred (who was shouting similar, aligned orders, with that old edge), and Jabari. They were yelling. There was much profanity. Many threats, and options offered, like when Kindred told the viceroy, “You can come with us, or you can go fuck yourself.”
Lila, off to one side, was dabbing her face with a beige washcloth that looked like it’d been used to clean the world’s worst nosebleed. She’d changed clothes and had done a fair job of cleaning herself considering that the only water left was frozen as cubes, but she still looked like she’d taken a run through a dripping meat locker. She wasn’t looking at Piper. Lila’s eyes were on Peers as he tossed in his own two cents, reasserting that he could get them safely to the Cradle, but Lila looked like she didn’t believe him. She looked, in fact, like she might jump on the man’s back and stab him with a nail file.
Piper’s head sagged with the weight of an unknown feeling. She couldn’t find anything to hold in the emotion, so she waited for it to subside. It could be about Clara still missing; it could be about Cameron; it could be about something else entirely. Somehow, it felt like it might be about both Clara and Cameron, but that didn’t make sense. She only knew her own heavy sorrow. And yet there was hope in the sadness, as if it had meaning. As if some of the horror they’d lived through in the past hours and days and months and years had been worth it. As if there’d been — and maybe still was — purpose behind it all.
The feeling passed, moving on like low-hanging mist dissolving in the sun, and then there was only the sound of arguing.
“I don’t give a shit what you want to do,” Meyer was telling Jabari. “We’re going.”
“You can’t get away! Where are you going to go?”
“To your submarines. Then to the sea; what do I care?”
“You can’t just go out into open water! You’re safer here.”
“You mean where the water just turned to blood? You know we’re in Egypt, right? Any of this seeming familiar to you? What comes next?”
“Frogs,” said Peers.
“Well, fuck that,” Meyer said. “I’m not going to sit around and wait for frogs. You want to wait for frogs, Kindred?”
“I hate frogs.”
Jabari moved a foot closer, too far into Meyer’s personal space. Her eyes darted to Kindred then back. “What a shock that you agree with yourself.”
“You don’t have to agree with me, Mara! This is a simple proposition. Whoever wants to come with me can come. Whoever wants to stay can stay. You want to wait for lice and boils and locusts and shit? Go for it. But if there’s a chance we can walk through the sea once parted by Moses, all the way to some vehicles you put in place specifically to escap
e this, then we’re going to take it.”
“We have to stick together! For protection!”
“Only one not going is you. We’ll be fine.”
Lila tossed her washcloth to the floor. It landed with a splat.
“I’m not going, Dad.”
“You’re goddamn well going, Lila!”
“Why?” Jabari said, advancing another inch. “You said whoever wanted to stay could stay.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s an adult. And her daughter is here.”
“You don’t know that,” Meyer said.
“You don’t know anything!” Jabari screamed.
“Peers,” Kindred said. “The tunnels. Where are they?”
“I have an idea. I’d have to go up into the palace to see.”
“Great escape plan,” Jabari said, looking around. “You don’t even know where you’re going. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it after all.”
“I can find them,” Peers said.
“How?”
“It’s … complicated.”
Attention left Peers when Jabari started pacing, but Piper noticed that he’d grabbed his backpack and was holding it in his lap. A subtle change, but to Piper it looked as if he had something he meant to protect. He’d hugged it tighter when Jabari asked her question. What was in that backpack that would tell him the tunnels’ whereabouts?
Piper’s eyes went to Lila. She’d seen Peers grip the backpack, too. She noticed Piper watching her and looked away.
At the room’s center, Jabari shook her head, glaring at Kindred and Meyer, gesturing overtly at Peers.
“He doesn’t have a clue. He won’t tell you what he knows or how he knows it. And you’re just going to trust him to get you out so you can hook into the satellite and talk to the other viceroys?”
“Fuck the other viceroys!” Kindred said. “I don’t care what happens as long as he can get us out of the city.”
“You’ll draw the ship’s attention! Bring it down on us all!”
Meyer rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Do you really think we’re hiding from them? The Astrals know exactly where we are.”
“This building is made of repeater stone, same as the monoliths,” Jabari said. “They can’t see through the walls in here. It was part of the truce when we founded Ember Flats.”
“Don’t be naive.”
“We studied this! We did our research!” the viceroy shouted, her careful control starting to unravel. “You just dropped acid and followed the motherfucking godhead!”
“Actually, Benjamin’s people inside Heaven’s Veil told me that Ayahuasca — ”
“Stay out of this, Piper,” Kindred said.
“I’m on your side!”
Meyer raised his hands, palms out. “Okay, okay. Calm down, everyone.”
“I’m plenty calm,” said Jabari. “In fact, I’m the only sane one here.”
“I said I’m staying, too.”
“No you’re not, Lila,” Kindred said.
“How can you not care? She’s your granddaughter!” Then it looked, for a second, as if Lila might add, “Sorta.”
“We might have a better chance of finding her once we’re outside the palace walls anyway,” Meyer said, hands still halfway raised. “You heard what she said about the stone in the walls. Piper’s obviously tapping into something now. Right, Piper?”
Piper fought down annoyance and indecision. Finally she nodded.
“If Clara is outside, maybe that’s why Piper can’t really feel her now. Maybe if we go outside — ”
“You’ll find yourself covered in frogs and boils and locusts?” Jabari said.
“Logical,” Kindred said. “The Bible is just a story. It’s not a field guide to what’s going to happen next.”
Jabari jabbed an accusing finger at the TV screen, now showing a feed of the Nile. The river looked as if someone had filled it with tomato soup.
“The shuttles have mostly retreated,” she said. “I’m not seeing nearly as much here about Reptars or anything else, other than my people stampeding each other. They turned the water to blood. They did that once before. Did you ever stop to think that they’re not doing it because ‘the Bible says so,’ but because this is what they do and the Christian Bible is just one record of something that actually happened, for other reasons?”
“You’re guessing,” Kindred said.
“You’re guessing!” Jabari retorted.
“Just … relax. We’re leaving.”
“I’m not leaving, Dad!”
“Goddammit, Lila!” Meyer said, his temporarily calm mood snapping like a twig. “We’re all going, and that’s all there is to it!”
He turned to Jabari in the following silence.
“Do whatever you want. Stay or go. I’m sure there are some of your people left around in other bunkers, hiding in rooms, wherever. Maybe you can get a clear frequency and talk to the other viceroys. I like you, and I’m grateful to you for taking us in. But you will not tell me what my family can and cannot do. We are leaving. I’d prefer to do so with a plan once we leave Peers’s tunnels. But we’ll go however we have to, even if that only means running. God knows we’ve done it before.”
Jabari sighed then nodded.
“I’ll unlock a tablet for you. If the feeds are still showing up down here on the TV, that probably means the house server is running. It’ll sync with maps to the Cradle’s location. It’ll walk you through how to de-dock the submersibles, how to pilot them, where to find and how to access the rendezvous checkpoint, everything. If I can reach the viceroys before you reach the broadcast hub, I’ll let them know you’re coming and that they should speak to you as they would to me. If not, the fact that you’re authorized by my fingerprint should convince them to at least hear you out.” Jabari looked earnestly at Meyer, her rancor gone now that she saw the futility of her cause. “But there are no guarantees. Even if you make it to our broadcast hub, they might not reach theirs. I’ve seen nothing at all that tells us what’s happening in other cities. They might all be dead. They might all have ships like this overhead, and water turning to blood might be nothing by comparison.”
She looked at Peers, but he didn’t take the bait. Watching them, Piper felt sure that he had a response — knowledge about the possibilities of other big ships, perhaps — but the man said nothing.
Meyer looked at Lila, Piper, and finally Jabari.
“Thank you,” he said.
But Piper felt the echo of her earlier sorrow deep inside, and the way it resonated with the news that they’d be leaving the palace was troubling.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that even as the world fell apart, the process of judgment wasn’t yet over — and that by running, they were doing exactly what the judge, jury, and executioners expected them to do.
CHAPTER 15
“Welcome to the Hideout,” Ella said, smiling, as they reached a nondescript spot behind an alley dumpster.
She extended her hand to knock on a graffiti-covered door, but it opened before her knuckles could touch the metal surface. To Clara, the whole thing looked like an empty ritual. Ella didn’t look like she’d expected to actually knock (her fist wasn’t even clenched) and the red-haired boy who opened the door didn’t seem surprised to see them. Any of them, including Clara.
He stepped aside, allowing their entry.
When Clara saw that they meant to let her in without so much as a nod, she extended her hand to the boy.
The boy took it, but did so limp-handed, halfheartedly, as if irritated by the distraction that had required him to open the door. It seemed like he wasn’t a greeter so much as the person closest to the door when he’d felt their presence beyond it.
“I’m Clara.”
“I know.”
After a pause, her hand already dropped, she said, “What’s your name?”
The boy looked at Nick. Then Nick, not the boy, said, “This is Cheever.”
“That’s
an unusual name.”
“It’s a nickname,” Nick said. His real name is — ”
“Don’t say it,” Cheever said.
(Eugene), Clara heard in her mind.
Nick smiled like a little devil.
They were still standing around awkwardly, Cheever looking as if waiting to be excused. He seemed to be a year or two younger than Nick, not much older than Clara but with a teenage-sized chip on his shoulder. His hair was the color of a dirty carrot, and his eyes were green. He had a sloppy, slouched look about him, his blue T-shirt rumpled.
“Nick and Ella found me in a — ”
“In that house on Divinity Avenue,” the boy finished. “The one with the broken rear window and the busted fence. You’re Viceroy Dempsey’s granddaughter. You’ve spent most of your life in a palace or wandering, so you’re new to communicating in a network. And right now you’re trying to figure out how I know everything you told these two, even though it should be obvious. And — ”
He stopped then turned to Nick. “What’s this?”
Clara looked at Cheever, expecting to see something curious in his hands. Instead, she saw nothing, except that she could feel mental fingers poking at the memory of the strange voice she’d seemed to hear — the one that had stopped her dead on the street on their way here.
“Something she kinda remembered on the way over. It’s not important.”
“Sure seems important. She thinks it’s important.”
Clara’s mouth opened. She was considering an objection but wasn’t sure what to protest. Was it more offensive that they were casually discussing a personal mental event that she’d shared with no one, or that they were talking about rather than to her?
“She’s just getting used to things. Give her a break, huh?”
“I dunno. Feels like something she’s hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Clara said.
“And she’s … ” He trailed off, focusing, and Clara felt the mental fingers digging deeper. The sensation was intrusive. She tightened instinctual muscles and found she could push him back. But not before he reached something else.