The Blood Gardener (The Dark River Book 2)

by Michael Richan

  He hurried, snipping quickly. The end of the tail separated and fell to the ground, and the rest of the creature took off into the air, dripping a liquid from the injury. He reached up to grab it, but it was gone before he could stop it.

  Down on the ground he examined the severed tail; the tip looked exactly like a scorpion’s aculeus. It contracted and relaxed, forming a curl and then straightening out again, as though it was trying to stab at anything it might be able to reach. Derick stepped on it, feeling it crunch under his foot. When he removed it, the segment was flattened, with liquid squished out upon the ground.

  He moved to the next figure, hoping to find another insect, but the statue was bare. Got to move more quickly, he thought. Sever the tail and grab it before it flies. He switched the reinforced glove to his left hand.

  The next two bodies were clean, but the third was a woman curled into a fetal position, and at the base of her spine another insect was feeding. He moved slowly, not wanting to scare the scorpionfly away. This time he moved the blade close to the creature, but when he decided to take the final step, he quickly slipped the blade under the tail, snipping at the same time, and raising his gloved hand over its back.

  It launched from the woman’s spine, traveling only a few inches into Derick’s fingers, which wrapped around it quickly and held tightly. Its long insect legs strained at the glove, and he was surprised at how much strength the creature exhibited, grateful for the protection of the metal mesh. Its amputated tail flung rapidly in the air, reflexively trying to sting him, but with no ability to complete the attack. He rotated his hand so that the bottom of the insect was exposed, and located the gland, fat and swollen with the meal it had just extracted from the frozen woman on the ground.

  He positioned the snips and severed the gland from the scorpionfly, letting its body drop from his hand as he tried to secure the gland. The insect fell to the ground. It fluttered its wings as though it was trying to take off, but due to the amputations it was either too weak or confused to successfully leave the ground.

  He knelt, setting the snips on the ground next to him, and pulled the vial from his pocket, popping its lid open with a flick of his thumb. He held the gland over it, inverting it so the opening that resulted from his snip was positioned over the top of the vial, and squeezed. An ounce of dark brown liquid slowly dripped into the container; once he’d wrung the last drop from the gland, he tossed it aside and capped the vial, slipping it back into his pocket.

  He grabbed the snips from the ground, and watched as the scorpionfly flitted next to his feet. Deciding to put it out of its misery, he stepped on it. It was big enough that it didn’t flatten entirely, but once he’d crushed enough of it, it stopped moving.

  Eleven more to go, he thought, walking to a man a few feet away whose face bore the expression of shock and dismay. The scorpionflies seemed to prefer the back; he found two on this statue, and he picked the easiest one to access.

  As he snipped the tail of the one he’d selected, the other became alert and pulled its stinger from the stone. Within moments it was in the air, and it wasn’t flying away; it came at him. His hands were on the snips and trying to capture the fly he’d just maimed when the other buzzed past his face so closely he could feel its fluttering wings. It caused him to miss the other fly, and it flew up into the air to escape, raining down a splattering of liquid from its amputated tail.

  This isn’t going to be as easy as I hoped, he thought. From now on, only pick ones that are solo.

  He moved to the next body, scanning its surface. It was free of parasites, so he moved on to the next, which was a young man with a boyish face. He didn’t look much older than sixteen or seventeen, and as he scanned the surface of the statue he felt bad for the youth; gifted and young, with his whole life ahead of him, wasted and ruined by a simple overindulgence. It seemed criminal. On the boy’s back was another scorpionfly. He quickly performed the maneuver, replicating the success he’d had with the first one, draining the liquid from the gland into the vial. Instead of thinking about the substance as something that had come from a fly, Derick wondered exactly how much of the boy was in the dark brown material.

  That would make me a parasite as well, he thought as he squeezed the gland to wring the last drops from it. Empty, he let it fall to the ground.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you going back?” Monkey asked as he slowly inserted an assembly into his machine, watching it carefully as it slid along thin metal rails.

  “Depends on how long it’s going to take your gadget to work,” Derick replied. “I stopped in Edenville to reset. Made A wait for me just outside the portal.”

  “I want to talk to you about A,” Monkey said, his face still close to the assembly, watching as it entered the device and locked into place. Once it was seated properly, a swirling light began to form on its outer panel. “Oh, that’s good, I think.”

  “What about A?” Derick asked.

  Monkey moved to the viewfinder, pulling it to his face. “Good. That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen.” Monkey paused, then exclaimed, “Oh!”

  “What?”

  “Look at that!” Monkey cried, the viewfinder hiding the upper half of his head from Derick’s view. “Oh! Wonderful!”

  “Is it working?”

  “Look at that! Look at all that! And it’s correct, too!”

  “Goddamn it, Monkey, what’s going on in there?”

  Monkey pushed the viewfinder away from his face. “It’s installed! New data pouring in! What a fabulous upgrade!”

  “Does it tell you who gave Mazlo the finger?”

  “No,” Monkey said, “because I’m testing it on something I know the history of.” Monkey walked to another section of the machine and withdrew a glass tube. Inside was a dead creature, a small round furry animal about the size of a quarter. Monkey opened the tube and poured the animal onto a metal tray. It rolled out and bounced against the edge of the tray like a fuzzy marble.

  “I got this emmel in Pana, from my supplier,” Monkey said, pointing at the fuzzy ball. He pulled the viewfinder back to his face. “It not only correctly identifies Red’s place, it also indicates that it was at his shop for three months before I bought it.” Monkey looked at Derick from around the viewfinder. “Not as fresh as he claimed!”

  “So, it works?”

  Monkey went back to the viewfinder. “And before that, it was at a wholesaler in Atina for ten days or so…before that, it was at a nursery outside of Atina. Looks like it was born there. Yes, I’d say it works marvelously!”

  “Let’s test the finger, then,” Derick said.

  “Of course,” Monkey replied, stepping away from the viewfinder and walking to a cabinet to retrieve the finger. As he inserted it into the glass tube, Derick looked down at the tray, and was surprised to see the fuzz ball moving around, apparently not dead; tiny legs had emerged from its underside, hidden from view, and it was racing around the tray, contained by the edges. It looked like a small hairy pinball, making a tiny irritated squeak every time it hit the tray’s barrier.

  Monkey placed the tube into the device and waited while it read the finger. He pulled the viewfinder into position, and Derick saw the lights of the display flashing on Monkey’s face.

  “Got it!” Monkey said with delight. “Here’s The Blood Gardener, here’s where it was before that…”

  He paused.

  “What?” Derick asked.

  “It just keeps going,” Monkey said. “Place after place. I’m seven hundred years back, and it just keeps going…”

  Derick watched as Monkey’s mouth slowly opened, his jaw lowering in disbelief at what he was seeing.

  “Fourteen hundred years…what does that little symbol mean? Twenty-six hundred years. This thing is ancient, and it’s been all over the place!”

  “I don’t care about any of that right now,” Derick said. “I just want to know who gave it to Mazlo.”

  “Well, I can’t say who, of cours
e,” Monkey replied. “But the coordinates are pretty precise. It’s in the mountains just outside of Jayce. Do you know where that is?”

  “Never been there,” Derick answered. “It’s not far from Corbin, right?”

  “From Corbin, it’s the opposite direction as Valkin. Not entirely free from firestorms, but in the mountains you should be safe.”

  “I need an exact location,” Derick replied.

  Monkey was jotting down something on a pad at his desk while continuing to look into the viewfinder. “I’ll write out directions. You plan on going there right away?”

  “Yes,” Derick replied.

  “Going to take A with you again?”

  “If he wants to go.”

  Monkey pushed the viewfinder away, finished with his notations, and ripped of the page, handing it to Derick. “This should get you there. It’s a house in the mountains above Jayce. Now, about A.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been uncovering some very disturbing things in the DNA sample you brought me.”

  “Disturbing?”

  “Well, unusual,” Monkey said. “I’ve already compared A’s DNA to a normal monochild, and I’m aware of all the anomalies. But when I begin referencing it to the DNA you brought me of his mother…”

  “Anna.”

  “Yes, Anna…well, it’s disturbing.”

  “You make it sound bad.”

  “I don’t think there’s any way to predict how long A will live. He might die tomorrow, or he might outlive us all.”

  “You could say the same about us,” Derick replied. “That’s not very helpful.”

  “I think he may have organs not normally found in monochildren.”

  “Organs? Like what?”

  “I can’t x-ray him here like in the real world. If I could dissect him, I could…”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “No, I know that,” Monkey said. “I’m just saying I can’t tell you for sure. I can’t look inside him.”

  “So he has extra organs,” Derick replied. “Is that all?”

  “Well, I think his ability to fade from view is related to that.”

  “OK. Anything else?”

  “I think he may have other abilities, too.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, if I’m right, trancing.”

  “Trancing?” Derick asked. “Like gifteds do, in the real world?”

  “Yes, but here.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “If I’m right, it means he can enter a trance state and leave his body. And like gifteds in the real world, he can open that trance to others.”

  Derick let the news sink in. In the real world, people with the gift entered and left the River at will, and most of them were able to induce a trance state that was deeper, more able to access hidden aspects of the River and to travel farther from their bodies than normal. But here, in the Dark River, most people were already in the River, unable to alter their state any further. If A had the ability to conduct a trance in the Dark River, that was huge. It would make him more wanted than me, Derick thought.

  “You realize the impact of that?” Monkey asked.

  “I do,” Derick said. “If it’s true.”

  “A simple test could confirm it,” Monkey replied. “And there might be more. I don’t know yet, I’m not done with all of the analysis. Thought you should know, though, before you place him at any more risk.”

  “Risk?” Derick asked. “You mean when he goes places with me?”

  “Yes,” Monkey replied. “If he’s able to trance, he’s incredibly valuable, and you’re hauling him around the Dark River like he’s a dog, following you for fun.”

  “Let’s get a couple of things straight,” Derick replied. “I think you’ve misunderstood the nature of A and my relationship. I don’t drag him anywhere. He comes along when he wants to.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t let him,” Monkey interjected.

  “And second, I’m not going to keep him locked up here like a jewel in a safe.”

  “I’m just saying you might want to err on the side of caution,” Monkey replied. “He’s potentially worth a lot more than you thought.”

  “Than you thought,” Derick said, staring Monkey down. “I’ve always thought he was special.”

  Monkey looked away. “I’d like to try and figure out how to clone him,” he said, pulling the glass tube from the device and removing the finger. “Imagine if more monochildren could trance. Consider how that would change their place in the social structure here.”

  “No poking and prodding him,” Derick said, folding the paper Monkey had given to him and placing it in his pocket. “Got it?”

  “I don’t need to poke and prod,” Monkey replied. “I have enough samples already. I do think you should test him, and see if he can do it.”

  Derick knew Monkey’s perspective of A was grounded in his general devaluation of monochildren, like most residents of the Dark River, and that it was at odds with his own experience of them. A was the first monochild Derick had known, and A had the distinction of being Anna’s child, something that placed him in an entirely different category for Derick from day one. However, he knew in Monkey’s mind the kid was still just a member of a race of common beasts, seen as the product of rape and murder, routinely degraded and marginalized. Even after A had begun communicating, Derick wasn’t sure Monkey viewed him as much more than a collection of body parts to be sold to Soul Grinders. Perhaps the potential of A transcending normal monochild attributes might lead Monkey to treat the kid with more respect — or, it might lead him to experiment more. He needed to clip the idea of experimenting on A from Monkey’s mind.

  “If he has the ability to trance, it’ll be something I find out on my own,” Derick said. “You’re not to test him, you hear me? If I find out you have, I’m going to be pissed.”

  “Fine,” Monkey said. “Provided you’ll tell me the results of what you find out.”

  “Listen,” Derick said, walking closer to Monkey and placing his hand on the man’s shoulder to stop him from fidgeting with tubes. “Look at me.”

  Monkey turned to face him.

  “I need to know that when I leave him with you, he’s safe,” Derick said. “I don’t care if you study him, so long as he isn’t harmed in any way. I don’t want to come back from the real world and find out some experiment you wanted to conduct required part of his liver and he’s been cut open. You don’t touch him without my permission. Are we clear?”

  “I think you misunderstand me,” Monkey said. “I’m not going to hurt him. I like him quite a lot.”

  “But you’re intrigued by his DNA, I can tell. You have this look in your eye that makes me nervous.”

  “Just the excitement of a scientist,” Monkey replied. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  - - -

  The trek to Jayce was going to be even longer than the haul to Letra. He could have shortened the time by using the portals, but A insisted on coming along, and Derick agreed to take him. Monkey’s suspicions of A’s abilities notwithstanding, Derick had come to appreciate A’s company while traveling, and it allowed him to spend more time with the kid. If A’s days were still numbered in some way, he wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, and A had demonstrated his ability to handle himself well in dangerous situations.

  And then there was his daring robbery in the Belly, at Mazlo’s.

  The two traversed the paths between Edenville and Corbin, taking a route similar to the one Derick and Anna had taken months before. As they approached Corbin, firestorms became more frequent in the distance, and Derick could sense A’s excitement.

  After Corbin, the path to Jayce became difficult to navigate. Whereas the roads between Monkey’s and Corbin had been relatively flat, the path to Jayce rose steadily in elevation until they were in the mountains, passing through a canyon with steep cliffs on either side. Large rocks that had fallen from the canyon walls littere
d the path, requiring Derick and A to go around them. The canyon flattened out after a while, and Derick stopped to consult the notes that Monkey had written for him.

  Look! A said, having stepped off the path to a lookout on the left.

  Never leave the path, remember? Derick said to A, walking to where the kid had stopped. He was met with a sudden drop-off, and an extensive view of the valley below. Dim lights from Corbin were in the distance, and below them several firespouts were moving across the land, incinerating the empty space they touched, slowly crisscrossing each other.

  They look alive, A said as he watched them moving.

  They kinda do, Derick replied. Like creatures walking over the land.

  Can you control them from here? A asked.

  What the hell, Derick thought to himself. He knew A enjoyed watching him control the firespouts. He closed his eyes and felt the heat rise in his palms, his markings quickly rising in temperature. He remembered how he’d organized his thoughts that day in Valkin, when he’d brought the storm down, wiping out the town.

  Wow, A cried out, and it caused Derick to open his eyes.

  In the midst of the smaller spouts tracing around the landscape below, a much larger funnel had appeared. It was racing over the surface of the land, subsuming the smaller storms as it progressed, becoming larger as it engulfed and incorporated the tinier spouts.

  Derick could feel A turn his attention from the scene to him, watching him as he concentrated, forcing the storms to consolidate. A seemed as much in awe of him as of the storms below.

  Soon the larger firespout had consumed all of the smaller ones, and had grown into a massive twister, spewing large jets of flame from its sides as it rotated around its core.

  Then it lifted from the surface, the funnel retracting up into itself, and was gone. Crackles of electricity raced through the air, dispersing the energy that was still there, waiting.

  Wow! A said again, having turned his attention back to the scene below. You did that!