Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  Wolves like this don’t exist anymore.

  I crouch down for a closer look. I’m fascinated and repelled. These are savages. Their forepaws and hind feet look almost identical, with fingers and toes that are little more than clawed nubs. Yet still, there’s something majestic about them. The way they move, the way they pace in their cages, circling round and round. Imagine being down on all fours, all the time, unable to stand up. Just from looking at them, I know that if we were out in the open, racing through a field, any one of these creatures would beat me every time.

  “Henry, look.”

  Once again, Fiona’s found another door, this time behind a different cabinet. It seems all the rooms are linked along rear passages.

  “There are more of them,” she says.

  The next room stinks with a wetter, tangier kind of excrement. It’s also full of cages, but smaller ones, shaped like bullets standing on end. Each cage imprisons a tiny raven, no taller than a pumpkin. When they see us, they flap and squawk. Dull black eyes flit with terror as we lope past their bars. We must look like monsters to them.

  We keep going. Every room houses another species. There’s a room for mules, one each for cats, frogs, pigs, goats. There’s a room full of foxes. I notice they are much like the wolves, only smaller. But they’re just as fierce with energy, padding in cramped circles on primitive paws, careful to sidestep the piles of their own waste.

  Fiona’s taking rolls of pictures. It feels like we haven’t said a word in ages.

  “Wait,” I say. I crouch down in front of one particular cage. Inside, there’s a gray fox, lurching in circles on four ancient legs. Two shocking black streaks slide along either side of its snout, and its eyes—they’re sodium yellow and shot through with flecks of violet.

  “I know this one.”

  Fiona comes closer. “What do you mean you know it? How can you—?” Her voice breaks up as it dawns on her. “You mean?”

  “His name was Jerry. He was homeless, I think. Sold dust on the street.”

  “It’s a coincidence. It only looks like someone. It’s not possible.”

  “It’s his eyes.”

  We both peer into the cage, into Jerry’s distinctive face. In response, seeing the hairy mugs of these two enormous wolves looming over him, Jerry growls. He bares his tiny perfect teeth and coughs up a bark so small and meaningless it makes me feel nothing but deep sadness.

  “But Henry, how? If they used dust—if they used magic—to do this to him, it would’ve worn off by now. It’s impossible.”

  “Not for fairies,” I say. “Not for old-time magic.”

  “Fairies would never do something like this.”

  “What if they didn’t have a choice?” I think about what Jerry told me, when he caught me reading Dad’s letters. Good destinies and bad destinies. Old-time magic could send you either way. That’s what this is. A bad destiny. The worst kind of all. A destiny that doesn’t push you forward to some unfulfilled potential, but backward, devolving you to savagery.

  Fiona covers her mouth. “So that means . . . in all these rooms?”

  “What else can it mean?”

  She lets out a tiny cry. “Remember what they said? ‘Total market saturation.’”

  Of course. “That’s why Nimbus is down here with the nixies. They control Dockside, and that means the reservoir. Let’s say Nimbus produced a dust potent enough to use in the water system . . .” I gaze around the room. Everywhere, tiny foxes scratch hopelessly against iron bars. “We could all end up like this.”

  For a moment, neither of us can speak.

  “But then . . .” Fiona looks around. “Where are the fairies? When they talked about them just now, they were looking right up here. But all that’s here are these—I don’t know—these animals.”

  “When they talked about the fairies, they were looking up, but not up here. They were looking up to—”

  “Eden.”

  We both flinch. It wasn’t Fiona who completed my thought.

  It was Skinner. He’s standing in the exit that leads out to the scaffolds. We were so shocked by what we were seeing, we never even heard him open the door. Behind him stands a whole army of globs.

  “Good,” he says, chewing on yet another stalk of straw. “Just the wolf I was looking for.” His disfigurements crack into an ominous grin. “I have a job for you, Mr. Whelp. And I know you’ll do it, too. After all”—he looks at Fiona—“you were kind enough to bring me a hostage.”

  Fiona growls from deep in her throat and the foxes respond in kind, braying and barking and leaping in their cages.

  “That reminds me,” says Skinner. “We shall have to find you two animals a cage for the night.”

  30

  PROOF

  TO SAY THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD WOULD BE A NASTY UNDER-statement. I’m sitting in the rear of Skinner’s brougham. Manx, his right-hand cat, is piloting us through the early morning streets. Skinner’s beside me in the back, his bare hand on my knee—a natural deterrent when it comes to running away. But attempting to escape isn’t even an option. Fiona is still locked in Skinner’s demented idea of a kennel.

  Outside, the houses fall away as we move farther west, out past the edge of the city. The last vestige of urban life is yet another billboard, the Nimbus Brothers beaming down on the highway with their smocks and test tubes. The slogan cries, Enchantment for All!

  Manx steers us onto a turnpike that leads out through the vast wall hemming in the western edge of the city. The lights turn everything inside the tunnel a jaundiced yellow. Once we exit from the far side, it isn’t long before we’re driving through the quarries, endless pits that pucker the desert like honeycombs. Huge derricks and diggers and machinery litter the edges, the walls, and the floors of countless canyons. Conveyors spew chunks of sparkling stone into towering silos, where they wait to be crushed, sifted, refined, bottled, and shipped. These are the dust mines.

  Manx accelerates past them, peering at me in the rearview.

  I turn to Skinner. “You killed Doc, didn’t you?”

  He pretends he didn’t hear me.

  “You made it look like he killed himself, but I found this in his office.” I take the rods of gold out of my pocket. “See? Just like the one you gave me yourself.”

  “Not much in the way of proof, is it?”

  “So you did kill him.”

  He purses his twisted lips until they resemble the blossom of a cauliflower. “Please, don’t get me wrong on this point. I’m not offering you a denial. I’m merely observing that what you’re holding there in your paw is—I don’t know . . .” He considers for a moment. “Rather weak. In terms of proof.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  Again, the cat glances at me in the rearview. His eyes are narrow and suspicious.

  Skinner shrugs. “Your friend, the good Doctor Grey, was an inquisitive old wolf, wasn’t he?” His uneven eyes blink slowly. “There’s a lesson to be learned there, I think.”

  “Inquisitive,” I say, more to myself than Skinner. I think about Dad’s letters and something clicks. I know why Doc held them back, why he never gave them to me. He was keeping them for himself. He was using them. They were clues. “He found out about what you were doing, didn’t he? He knew you were planning to send us all back to the dark ages. Or some of us, at least.” I look back into the rearview, catching the cat’s eyes. “Don’t you know what he’s got in store for us? It’ll happen to you, too.”

  “Maybe you ought to pipe down.” Skinner regards me solemnly. “There’s no need to worry about what we’re planning. It’s perhaps a tad too complicated for primitive minds.” He looks out the driver’s-side window. “Ah, you see? We’re already here.” He points to a road that’s barely a cobbled foot path. “Up ahead, Manx. Take the next left.”

  We glide off the exit ramp, leaving the city. It isn’t long before we hit a dirt road. Gravel spumes out behind us. A small number of agriculturalists live out here, the hardnosed on
es who haven’t yet been lured into the city by the promise of smoggy infrastructure and meager-but-steady wages.

  Apparently, we are headed to an arid farm that is nothing more than a few acres of emptiness pressed against the river. Seen from the main road, the farmhouse is a coffee-colored smudge.

  The driveway is long, straight, and lined with sunbleached ceramic pots. A few of them are planted with neglected begonias, all dead, shriveled to brittle strings. The fat wheels of Skinner’s brougham crackle over the dirt. The sun is bright this morning, splashing down, flooding the dry land, leaving no shadows. Manx stops the car.

  “Look at me,” says Skinner.

  I do as I’m told.

  “A family of goats lives here. The mother’s a pain in the ass. The man of the house agreed to will us the property once he died, and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. But the old nanny went and had the papers annulled, says she wants to keep the place, will it over to her sons.” He sucks on his twisted lips, licking in some fugitive spit. “I’ve tried asking nicely. I warned her of what would happen if she didn’t fork over the land, but she refused. So now you’re gonna go in there and convince her. And if you can’t convince her then I think you know what to do.” His crooked eyes drill into me. “You are a wolf, after all. You understand?”

  I try swallowing, but my throat’s too dry. Manx stares out through the windscreen, arms folded over the wheel.

  Skinner pats my knee with his bare hand. “Nervous?”

  “I, um . . .”

  He reaches into his jacket and takes out an unmarked vial of fairydust. It writhes inside the tube like swarming bacteria. “I happen to have something for nerves right here.” He rubs his thumb around the cap. “It’s something special we’ve been working on. It’ll calm you down. Keep you focused. Make sure you get the job done.”

  The words echo all of my father’s warnings. He’ll say it’s for nerves, something to calm you down, something to help you get the job done right.

  I reach for the door handle and pull. “I’m okay.” I hurry out, fighting down the urge to run away. “I can do this for you. No problem.”

  Skinner’s visibly disappointed. “Are you sure? I think this would really help you.”

  Manx mugs at me through the window, expressionless.

  “I don’t need anything.” I try chuckling with confidence, but it comes out all wrong. “I’m not afraid of some old goat.”

  Skinner repockets the vial. “Suit yourself.” He looks at me calmly. “There’ll be other opportunities.” He sits back in the seat. “We’ll be waiting for you on the main road.”

  I push the door shut and Manx coaxes the car into a three-point turn. The wheels pop so loudly over the dry earth it sounds like gunfire.

  31

  BROKEN GHOSTS

  THE FARMHOUSE IS A WRECK. THE ROOF SAGS LIKE A HAMMOCK AND EVERY wall cants badly to the left. The mailbox out front is marked by a rusty number five and a name: THE CAPRAS.

  The land surrounding this place is grooved and waterless, coated in a layer of windblown sand. If anything had ever grown here, it long ago dried up and died. It’s not the sort of land you’d think anyone would be willing to kill for. Yet still, here I am.

  My foot breaks through the wood of the porch as soon as I attempt to step on it. I stand like that awhile, one leg buried in the coolness. Maybe I could make a run for it. Maybe I could get back to the city somehow and rescue Fiona. But what chance do I have? Instead, I pull my foot free and knock on the front door. A moment later it opens, just wide enough to squeeze in a credit card.

  “Nobody’s here,” says a voice, speaking from about the height of my knee.

  “So who’re you?”

  “I’m just a kid.” The door opens a little wider. “See?” He sticks his head out through the gap. His horns are barely there, just a pair of pink thumbs budding from the top of his skull.

  “Is your mother home?”

  “You mean my grandmother. My mom’s dead.”

  “Your grandmother. Can I speak to her?”

  “I told you, there’s nobody here.” If the kid is intimidated by a wolf at the door, he doesn’t show it. “No wait,” he says, thinking hard. “She’s down at the well. She’s getting water.” He points one cloven finger through the gap. “Down there.”

  There’s a gazebo-looking building off in the distance, among a thick copse of deadwood trees. A figure shambles around it, indistinct in the haze.

  “That’s her?”

  The kid opens the door a little wider. “I can—um, take you there if you want.”

  I tell him no. I can find my own way.

  As I approach, I see the gathering of deadwoods is denser than it looked from the farmhouse. The gazebo is roofless and falling to pieces. Beyond it is the well the kid mentioned, in the dead center of the trees, invisible from the house. It’s a simple cylinder of stone, shaded by a sheet of corrugated steel. There’s a hefty pulley suspended over the opening, coiled with thick rope and presumably tied to a bucket far below. But there’s no one here.

  “Hello? Mrs. Capra?”

  Silence. Just the creak of the deadwoods, straining up against a bright sky.

  “Hello?”

  A goat steps out of the copse, but it’s not an old doe. It’s a young buck, about my age. I’m still a good head taller than him, but he makes up for height with horns—huge coils of bone that wrap round his ears like enormous seashells.

  “Who’re you?” he asks.

  “I’m looking for the lady of the house.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “I was told that—”

  “Shouldn’t listen to the little guy.” He spits on the ground. “He’s a liar. But I got other brothers. Maybe you wanna meet them instead?”

  They emerge from the trees like spirits. Five more. Six in total. All I can see are the horns. All twelve of them.

  “I only need to talk to her.”

  “You can talk to us,” says the one who looks to be the oldest. A scouring-pad beard points due south from his chin. “Wha’ja wanna say?”

  I try explaining that I’ve been sent by the nixies, that this property belongs to them, but my explanation doesn’t fly. The goats laugh in my face. One of them has a pitchfork. He stamps on the prongs and sinks them deep in the empty earth. “Them mermen don’t own nothing they di’nt steal, and they’s never gon’ steal this land. This land’s ours. So best you scram. We never liked you canids comin’ round here.”

  “If I could speak to your grandmother, I’m sure she could—”

  “You’re not the first one they sent, you know.” It’s the eldest again. He’s holding a stout shovel. “Send’em all the time.”

  One of the younger brothers steps forward. “Usually we just run’em off the property before they even get to the house.”

  “But we’re tired of them sending you guys,” says the eldest. “We thought this time we’d try something different.” He smirks. “No offense meant to you personally, but we gotta send a message. If you catch our drift.”

  They fan out. It occurs to me—much too late—that they had all this planned. One of them swings a rake. I dodge it, but he wasn’t really trying. It was a diversion. One of the other brothers swings a shovel at my back. It clangs into my side and I double over. Seizing the opportunity, they pile on, hammering down blows from shovels and horns and bony fists. One of them raises the shovel over his head, sharp edge aimed at my throat.

  Then it happens again. Like in the race with Roy. Only this time I don’t have any dust to blame. It’s only me, in the firm grip of a natural, homegrown brand of fear and rage. Just like before, the pain vanishes. I’m a slick, impervious machine.

  My paw whips out. I catch the shovel as it swoops for my gullet and I yank it from the goat’s hooves. With the handle I strike back, whipping the kid at the base of his neck. He’s down and my arm flings the shovel around again. Its flat metal face slams another one against his broad, billy-goat chin.
There’s a crack and a gurgle, and then he’s down too.

  But there’re four of them still pounding me. I break the shovel into pieces and lash out. My claws tear gouges into the legs of two more. Their pants sop with blood and they collapse on severed sinews. That leaves two.

  The first one charges pitchfork-first, but I dodge him. I grab hold of the fork and snap off the prongs, pulling the goat to me with the handle and punching him dead in his snout. He crumples like all the rest.

  The oldest and wisest, however, takes me by surprise. He’s given up his tools to go with what he knows: his horns. The coils of bone ram my ribs. The momentum hurls me into one of the trees. It buckles under the meat of my back, handlike branches clawing my face.

  It takes a second for my vision to clear and when it does, I see the eldest brother standing over me with something in his hands. A chunk of loose stone. It crashes down onto my head and the rock explodes, blinding me with its fragments. The goat lifts what’s left for another blow, but before he can, I lunge for his hands. The rock shatters in my teeth and I feel his goatish fingers snapping like twigs.

  My paws clench murderously around his throat. His eyes bug out of his head, pleading with me. He’s beginning to go limp, when I realize I can’t breathe. My lungs are full of gravel and dirt and everything he hit me with. I drop him, choking and weak, and then my ears prick up. They’re tuning in something new. Footfalls. Scampering feet.

  It’s the youngest kid. He’s run down from the house to join the fight. But without air, I’m useless. The kid hits me square in the belly, hard enough to force the grit from my lungs. I vomit up a thick sludge and falter backward. My knees buckle against something. The edge of a wall?

  No, it’s the well. I see the sky, sagging with blue. It slides away like quicksilver. I see bricks, rough-hewn and getting darker and darker. I’m falling. And then it all goes black.

  Deeper into the trees. They’re alive in the wind. All I can hear is the swish of leaves. I still keep going, stalking forward, belly skimming the earth . . .

  It’s cold and quiet now. I feel queasy, seasick. It’s dark. It’s nighttime. High above me, the full moon blazes brighter than ever. My body is soft and slow. I can hardly feel my hide, but slowly, my senses reignite. Things begin to make sense.