by Ann Pino
Mundo looked up from the sofa at the girls’ approach. Elissa, clad for summer comfort in the light linen dress of an Egyptian queen, waved for her two attendants to quit fanning her. In one of the wing chairs, a young man in tights and velvet picked at a plumed hat, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.
Cassie remembered her manners and curtsied to Elissa, murmuring the appropriate “Your Excellencies.” She jerked Julilla’s arm to make her do the same.
Elissa motioned for them to rise and indicated they could sit wherever they liked. “We are pleased to see you again, Cassandra and Julilla. We trust you had no difficulties?” She glanced at the maid. “Offer our guests refreshment, Fiona.”
The maid curtsied to Cassie and Julilla and handed them each a cup. Cassie took a sip and found it contained straight whiskey.
“Mundo was just telling us the distressing news about May,” Elissa went on. “We offer our condolence and complete support.”
“Uh, thanks, Your Excellency,” Julilla said, “But what exactly does that support entail?”
Mundo glared, but before he could say anything, Elissa smiled primly and answered as if the question had been expected. “Your leader and I were negotiating when you arrived and we hope to hear your valuable insight.”
Julilla made as if to speak, but Elissa cut her off. “Before you offer your suggestions, we have news of our own.” She turned to the young man, now shredding his hat as if it were a matter of urgency. “Banquo, please tell our guests what happened on your mission to the Obits.”
Banquo looked at the girls, his eyes dark and haunted. “Something went wrong,” he said. “We were betrayed.”
* * *
The story was simple enough. They successfully worked their way into the Obits, first as an affiliated minor gang, then as junior members. With Cuervo as their go-between, they sent information to the alliance about the Obits’ numbers, supplies and range. The Obits were a layered group, with access to information tightly controlled by the level of trust each member earned. “I never got very deep,” Banquo explained, “But the food was good and so was the medical care. We got vitamins every day and you could always get a pain-killer or antibiotic if you needed one. A good thing, since Galahad had that infected arm.”
“It got infected?” Cassie blurted, ignoring the way Julilla looked at her.
Banquo quit twisting his hat. “They took him to medical the very first day. He must’ve made a good impression on someone, because he was able to get in deeper than the rest of us.”
“Then why were his reports the least informative?” Mundo wanted to know.
“He was under the closest observation,” Banquo said, as if it was obvious. “A lot of what I reported, like the sighting of grownups, was what he told me, not what I saw for myself.”
“Then how do you know it was true?” Elissa said. “Your instructions were clear. You were to report hearsay as such and not as personal observation.”
Banquo ducked his head and resumed plucking at his hat.
“This sheds a whole new light on things,” Mundo said darkly. Since Cassie and Julilla had no way of knowing what he was talking about, he added, “Galahad is the only member of our embedded team who didn’t make it out in some fashion. Before you arrived, we were discussing the possibility he was being held prisoner. But now it sounds like he could’ve turned double agent, since we know nothing about what he was doing that close in.” He gave Banquo a stern look. “Isn’t that so?”
Banquo made a motion with chin and shoulders that could’ve meant anything.
“What do you mean, ‘didn’t make it out in some fashion?’” Julilla asked.
Mundo looked at the Thespian. “Would you like to tell it yourself?”
Banquo shook his head and shrank smaller in his chair.
“Jesse from St. Xavier’s and Isabel from the Operatics were apprehended by the Obits’ internal police.”
“I hid when they came for us,” Banquo explained.
“Coward,” Elissa said.
“How else was I supposed to save them, Your Excellency?”
“Good question, since you only saved yourself.”
Banquo bowed his head. “Maybe if they hadn’t done it so fast.”
“Done what?” Cassie asked.
“Executed them. I found them hanging from lamp posts as a warning to others.” At Cassie’s look of dismay, he added, “But Galahad got in good with their upper command. I think he’s still alive.”
“And probably working for them,” Mundo said bitterly. “Hanging was his specialty with the KDS.”
“What do you mean?” Cassie demanded.
“He never told you the Kevorks called him Gallows?”
Cassie shook her head and fell silent. As other members of their team showed up, she wondered if she could leave without attracting attention. She could say she felt ill—that wouldn’t be a lie. Over the last two months she had almost convinced herself she didn’t care what Jay Gallard had or hadn’t done, but now she realized she had been secretly forgiving his faults, preparing for some unlikely future in which she would see him again and he would explain himself in such a way that she could trust him. They would have a happy ending, living out a long and peaceful life together, no matter how improbable the odds. But now….
“This has been a failure from beginning to end.” Elissa slumped in her chair, then remembered she was supposed to be an empress and sat up straight. “We should collect our alliance into one grand army and attack.”
“Attack where?” Julilla said, speaking out of turn and earning a scowl from Mundo.
“There’s a building being guarded by high-level Obits,” Elissa explained. “It’s part of a lab complex where they take the children. We’ll attack there.”
Banquo jumped to his feet. “I’ve told you I don’t know where it is!”
“You say you know which road it’s on. Surely we can find it, if that’s the case.”
“It’s off County Road 223,” he said, “But I don’t know if it’s visible from the road, or down another road off that. They probably have ambush points.”
Mundo gave him an intense look. “So are you saying it’s impossible?”
“Think carefully,” Elissa added.
Banquo stared at the floor. “Of course not, Your Excellency. I’m only advising caution.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “May I be excused, Madame?”
Elissa dismissed him with a wave of her hand and turned her attention to Mundo. Neither leader noticed the way Banquo caught Cassie’s eye as he backed out of the Imperial Presence. A few minutes later, Cassie excused herself, claiming she needed to use the toilet. She found Banquo waiting for her in the tunnel of velvet drapes and followed him to a dark corner beside an iron ladder that reached into a great dark space overhead.
“What is it?” Cassie asked as he fumbled in a pocket.
Banquo withdrew a small box and pressed it in her hand. “He said to tell you he loves you.”
She shook her head. “If he’s staying of his own free will, he doesn’t love me, and I can’t love him after the things he’s done.”
“Cassie.” He grabbed her hand and held it tight, no longer the nervous weakling of a few minutes ago. “I know you don’t know me, but trust me that nothing is how it looks. We need to have faith. Everything depends on it.”
He dropped her hand and slipped into the shadows, leaving her alone with her flashlight, the gift, and her conflicted feelings. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall, and opened the box. Inside, glittering like a private star, was a diamond ring.
EXCERPT FROM CASSIE’S JOURNAL:
Battle preparations have begun and everyone is being mobilized. Those who can fight, train. Everyone else is being taught to spy, run messages, or do first aid. Meetings take place all day and often late into the night. Sometimes the meetings are here on the patio deck, other times Mundo and some of his guards and advisors sneak out in disguise to meet at the other groups’ locatio
ns.
I went along when we formally added the Zoo Tribe to our alliance. I wish I hadn’t been picked for that assignment because Zoo is a dirty, barbaric group. It appears they lived in the aquarium and small animal buildings during the winter, but now that it’s summer, they’re camping under the trees in the tigers’ fake savannah and the jaguars’ phony jungle. The animals themselves are dead, of course, and the Zoo kids wear the hides and make things with the bones. To seal our friendship, they burned scrap in a metal trash can and made music by beating bones together and chanting nonsense words. I was offered some oily meat, which I refused because it stank. I was offered a necklace made from a fang on a leather sinew, which I accepted. Then a tall boy in a headdress made of feathers and zebra tails led us in a crazy procession through the grounds that ended at the scummy sea lion pool where those who dared jumped in to cool off from the summer heat.
As preparations continue, Julilla gets angrier and angrier. She says we don’t know enough about what we’re up against—will we be fighting just the Obits, or the Pharms, too? No one is sure. Worse than that, we’re not even certain how many Obits there are. Banquo is vague and not even the twins have been able to find out.
We’ve been eating, at least. After three days of roadblocks, the Pharms took the blockades down and went back to selling drugs and kidnapping children, as if we no longer interested them. It’s been a week since they last came to the hotel, and then it was just to stomp around and act all fierce and important while demanding to know why we haven't bought antibiotics recently.
There’s been no word about May. The twins have made a few attempts to find her, but they haven’t succeeded, mainly because we have no clues to indicate what part of the city she’s in, let alone what building. We don’t even know for sure she’s alive, although most of us suppose that if she were dead she would’ve been hung in a public place like our embedded team or thrown on our driveway like Cuervo. We’re divided over whether to pursue the matter. It’s one of the things we argue about when we’ve got nothing better to do.
And in spite of all that’s going on, we seem to spend a lot of time not doing much. Julilla said most of a soldier’s time is spent waiting. She was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cassie looked Sid up and down. He had wrapped himself in a navy blue curtain that hooded his face and made him look like a child tripped up in his mother’s curtains. He was so sensitive, though, that it didn’t seem wise to say anything. Cassie pulled her black cloak tight, hooking and tying it according to the alterations the Thespian costume girl had made for her. “Stick close,” she said. “If we get separated, meow like a cat, three times.”
“That’s a dumb signal.”
“You got a better one? Come on.”
By now Cassie was used to navigating the damp and reeking streets by night. She kept to the shadows, moving around known hazards with ease, her ears alert to familiar noises so that she might pick out the unfamiliar. This was Sid’s first night trip to the theater, and he stumbled after her, whispering the occasional curse as he tripped over trash and turned his ankles in potholes.
Tonight the stage door was guarded by a girl who looked like the Swiss Miss mascot, had the cocoa icon been inclined to sport leather bandoliers across her chest and a tattoo of the number eight between her eyebrows. Cassie gave the night’s password and added, “We’re here to talk to Griffin about the Fresnels.”
The girl let them in and bolted the door behind them. She tugged a drooping knee sock, then settled herself on a high stool and smoothed her dirndl. “He’s been playing with those damn things all week. I heard they’re powerful enough to set the whole place on fire.” She fixed Sid with a look. “Is that true?”
Sid pulled off his curtain cloak and attempted to fold it. “They’re dangerous, yeah, but that’s the whole point.”
“Well, you better not burn this place. This is the best home I’ve had since the Telo.”
“We know what we’re doing. And we can’t test them properly without sunlight, anyway.”
The Swiss Miss nodded in satisfaction and Cassie led Sid down the claustrophobic hallway to the stage, which had been set to resemble a beach. A few Thespians lounged on towels and beach chairs by lantern light, fanning themselves and drinking something green and murky out of tall glasses. Off to one side, two spotlights had been disassembled, their parts arranged in orderly fashion in front of a giant foam clamshell. Griffin quit polishing a lens and came to greet them. “Glad you could make it tonight.” He shook Sid’s hand with more enthusiasm than seemed necessary. “Let me show you what I’m doing. I think this latest adjustment will increase our range by at least two hundred feet.”
While Sid went to discuss the light refraction capacity of the Fresnel lenses, Cassie looked for something to do. She had no desire to join the phony sunbathers, who were now lazily tossing a beach ball back and forth. Normally she would’ve hung out with whatever Thespian guards were around, but she saw no one in the vicinity and didn’t want to go back to the stage door and chat with the Swiss Miss.
She sat on the lumpy backstage sofa and picked up a script from a stack lying on the floor. She didn’t find it interesting, though—just two people talking and waiting for something to happen. It was so much like her own life that she tossed it aside in annoyance. She was fumbling for a different one and hoping it wasn’t another Samuel Beckett when a sturdy girl, all muscle and attitude, walked past carrying a box. She spotted Cassie and stopped.
“It’s okay,” Cassie said. “I’m Cassie Thompson, Regents. I brought our engineer to talk Fresnels with Griffin.”
The girl set down her box and it made a jingling sound. “I’ve heard of you. You’re Jay Gallard’s girl.”
Cassie shifted position and got poked by a broken spring. “No.”
“Really? I can think of a few girls who’d be glad to hear that.” She came forward and stuck out her hand. “I’m Marsha, by the way. I’m new around here.”
Cassie shook her hand and murmured appropriate greetings. “Where do you know Jay from?”
“Kevorks.” She motioned to a spot on the sofa. “Mind if I join you? I’ve been moving scenery all day and my back is killing me.”
Cassie edged over and Marsha sat down, rubbing a bruise on her arm. “That foam clamshell is heavier than it looks. The way the weight is distributed is all wrong.”
“I see,” Cassie said, but she really wanted to know about Galahad. “How’d you end up here after being with the Kevorks?”
“Me and some of the other KDS gals had our own group for awhile, but they’ve mostly all Teloed now. We called ourselves the Blue Ladies. East side. Ever hear of us?”
Cassie shook her head. “I lived on the other side of Callahan until I joined the Regents. West side.”
“What made you move central? At least in the ‘burbs you can dig a hole so your shit won’t stink.”
“The Regents were foraging in my area. Me and my friend were looking for food and Galahad—er, Jay—said if we joined the Regents, we’d get to eat.”
Marsha nodded wisely. “That’s Gallows for you. Always trying to do someone a favor.”
“I don’t know how big a favor it was. I mean, yeah, I haven’t starved, but his cousin killed my friend, and Jay…well, he talks a good game.” Cassie sighed and looked away.
“It’s all right.” Marsha patted Cassie’s arm. “I doubt he really went turncoat. Banquo dropped a few hints that make me think there’s more to it, and besides, it’s not Gallows’ way. They’re either holding him prisoner or he’s got something up his sleeve. No one is more loyal than he is.”
Cassie fixed her with a withering look. “Did anyone tell that to Trina?”
“Oh.” Marsha sat up straight. “Someone told you that old rumor.”
“It’s no rumor. He admitted it.”
“Admitted what? That he killed her?”
“That he might have, but he doesn’t remember.”
“Tha
t sounds about right.” At the look on Cassie’s face, she added, “I’ve never believed he did it. He was always helping girls out. It’s why they were all in love with him, those that liked guys, of course. Not me.”
“He says he was on drugs that night.”
Marsha looked at her askance. “Don’t tell me you believe that Reefer Madness bullshit. I’m telling you, Gallows would never hurt a girl, not even if she did something to him first.”
“Then how’d Trina end up dead, with him holding the knife?”
Marsha shrugged. “I have my theories, based on who was around that night. But I could be wrong. It could’ve been a random attack and he was too fucked up to defend her. God knows there was enough killing going on at the time. Maybe they separated and he found her that way later.”
Cassie hadn’t considered these possibilities, but why should she believe anything a Kevork said? “I know what I need to know.”
“That he’s willing to take responsibility for a murder none of his friends think he committed?”
“David believes it.”
Marsha raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that? And are you sure he’s really a friend?”
Cassie fell silent and Marsha stood and stretched her arms overhead. “Time to get back to work. I’m still on probation and don’t want anyone to think I spend all my time gabbing.”
“I see Thespians talking all the time.”
“Those are the ones who can act.” Marsha grinned. “It’s all work when you’re crew instead of cast.” She picked up her box, which jingled again as she shifted its weight in her arms. “It was nice talking to you. Say hi next time you’re around. I don’t have a lot of friends here yet, and since you’re Jay’s girl, you’re practically family.”
Cassie returned Marsha’s little wave and watched her disappear into the shadows, the sound of her footsteps and the jingling box dying into the darkness. In the distance something fell to the stage floor with a crash, and Sid cursed amid giggles from the group pretending to sunbathe on the phony beach with its fabric and spangle waves.