Brighid's Flame

by Cate Morgan

  She remembered, in school, seeing footage of New Delhi, or possibly Dubai. This was like that. Fleets of pedestrians, jumbled along with bicycles and vendors and more people. Halfway to their destination, Tara bought a round of coffee and pretzels from two separate vendors, leaning precariously out of the window to do so. The noise and stink were atrocious.

  Pretzels were contraband at the Tower. She couldn’t decide which was more glorious: the pretzel itself or the spice of forbidden gains.

  They finally reached Central Park, the tall gates and barbed wire giving it a certain penal quality that still gave her bad dreams. The security perimeter, shanties, and acres of salvage left an oily, metallic tang on her tongue. It leaked into her throat, filled her nasal passages. Her eyes began to burn and water.

  The van turned in at East 97th and trundled along until they could pull onto the gravel road that led them to the North Meadow Recreation Center. While the East Meadow had been given over to great, heaping piles of salvage and recyclables, sorted and towering, the much larger North Meadow was purely residential. What had once been baseball fields had developed into little tented hamlets with the dirt lines of the diamonds marking streets. Across 97th lay the Onassis Reservoir, where people gathered, and bathed, and—on the far end—lived in shanties if they could collect the materials, or trade for them. She recalled the difference of community between the tents and the Shanties—tented communities tended toward cooperation and a certain grim determination to see better days. The tents were for families and as normal a life as could be had. The Shanties had all but given up on those days, and fierce competition over resources reigned supreme.

  Tara and Stephen had shared a shanty. So had the several dozen students they’d led from the aptly named Hell’s Kitchen, through a newly war-torn city years before the biosphere had been implemented. The corporate government’s contract with Dreamtech had also built, and paid for, the gates and private security surrounding Central Park.

  The gates had gone up not long after the Children’s Shanties, as they’d been called. Small, inexpertly constructed hovels leaning against one another for lacking support, with the nearest bathrooms blocks away. They’d schooled themselves as best they could, because there’d been no one else. Tara and Stephen had worked to make sure there was enough to eat, and adequate shelter. And when more children came, they’d built more shanties, clumsy models of those built by adults.

  Well-meaning adults had attempted to put them in homes, for their own good. Tara and Stephen had known about homes. They had refused, and gone about the business of surviving. Three years later, Gwen had found them.

  The van stopped, and the freight truck behind it. Across the road, the old Tennis Center turned lively market began to empty of shoppers and tradesmen. Tara hopped out, finishing off her pretzel and scalding black coffee. The trucks shook as their back doors shot up, and their ramps were lowered to the ground. The crowds converged eagerly, some there to help unload while others hurried to the Wreck, as Parkies called the Center. The rec center had never been repaired after the war and probably never would be. The bright blue tarp helped, but not much.

  “Are you all right?” Stephen’s soft voice in her ear startled her, so she nearly dropped her case of bottled water. “You haven’t checked in.”

  “Sorry,” Tara murmured, settling the case on a nearby dolly with a stack of others so a fellow Foundation employee would roll it down the ramp. “I’m a little lost in…things.”

  “The past catching up to you?”

  “Something like that.” She stretched her back, scanning the crowd. “No sign of our boy.”

  “That would be too easy.” He paused. Tara got the impression Vincent or Gwen was listening in. “Don’t forget to check in,” he said. “Vincent’s worried.”

  Vincent, then. “Julien?” she all but whispered.

  “Working in bed, and not happy about it. He’ll live.”

  The fist around her heart loosened a little. “Good.”

  “Check in, Tara.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  He snorted, and signed off.

  The welcome news sharpened Tara’s focus. The past no longer overloaded her senses, though the strangeness of being a secret outsider in this place didn’t leave her. The children running through the crowd seemed happy and healthy, their shrieks rising above the good-natured rumble of the masses. There were no signs here—just people come to terms with an extended camping trip in a terrifying new world. If the Underground was here, it didn’t show.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  Tara turned. An earnest, narrow face, dominated by wire-rimmed glasses and an awful lot of shaggy, dirty-blond hair blinked at her. “Yes?”

  “You’re with the Foundation?”

  Tara didn’t draw his attention to her ball cap and hoodie, nor the fact she stood in a half-empty freight truck emblazoned with the Dante Foundation emblem.

  The man chuckled. “Sorry. It’s just that…well, could you possibly get a message to the board? Or direct me to someone who can? You see, some of us want to form an expedition, but lack the necessary funding. Maybe if the Foundation can see their way clear to donating a few extra supplies…”

  “An expedition? To where?” Tara hopped down onto the gravel.

  He fumbled a much folded piece of paper. “We’re trying to build a school, you see. At the moment, things are a bit haphazard. But with all the abandoned schools in the city, some of us thought that maybe, well, there might still be usable supplies in some of them. So we thought it might be worth taking a look.”

  “You could be right.” She paused. “Vincent wants to reopen the Public Library.”

  His eyes gleamed behind his lenses. “Oh, that would be truly wonderful. There’s nothing we couldn’t do with a library.”

  Tara smiled. “Where did you teach, before?”

  He grinned back. “NYU, history. Am I that obvious?”

  Tara held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “You never thought about St. John’s when Vincent established it?”

  “Private school?” He blinked again, genuinely confused. He looked around at all the activity, taking in the near-festival atmosphere and running children. “Oh no. Leaving them would be quite out of the question.”

  “Of course.” Tara held her hand out for his paper. “Is that your supply list?”

  “And estimated cost.” Without the paper, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. “It really would be something if Mr. Dante could get the library up and running again. We have a tent, you know.”

  Tara scanned his pencil-smudged list. Not so long ago, such a list would have amounted to perhaps a few hundred dollars in camping gear and food. Today… “A library tent?”

  He nodded proudly. “With nearly a hundred complete volumes. There’s a waiting list. And I managed to pull together quite the collection of news clippings, war and pre-war, for the history table.”

  Tara thought of the library at her disposal at the Tower. Mostly electronic, to be sure, but Vincent was a collector of the hardbound classics. Then she thought of the professor’s history table.

  “Do you suppose…is there anything you could do?” he asked now.

  Tara swallowed. “Yes, I rather think there is,” she said, and had the pleasure of watching his glasses nearly fog up with happiness. “Listen, I need to find Nearly Nick. Is he still around?”

  The professor’s buoyancy deflated, his expression darkening. “Why on this blessed Earth would you want to do business with him? Do you know what he tried to charge me for a partial copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets?” He pointed at the paper in her hand with accusatory fervor. “When I went to him with our list, he laughed in my face! No profit in it, he said. No profit!”

  Tara resisted the urge to step away. Instead, she offered him a secret smile. “Let’s just say I want a word.”


  He looked at her oddly. “You’re not a relief worker, are you?”

  “Not in the strictest sense, no.” She shrugged. “Mr. Dante likes to keep tabs on his interests.”

  The smile he gave her in return would have made a hungry crocodile beat a hasty retreat. “His people do business at the Wreck on Supply Day.”

  She just bet they did. “Thanks.” She waved the refolded list in promise. “I’ll make sure the right people see this.”

  Nick’s agents loitered in the makeshift bazaar of the Wreck’s disused tennis courts like a couple of piranhas watching a migrating school of fish with poorly concealed interest. Barely more than teenagers, they were dressed in warm winter clothes while their intended prey still made use of worn wartime layers of old clothes and what the Dante Foundation provided. She cradled a second cup of coffee and settled in to watch.

  She tapped her earpiece. “Stephen?”

  “That was quick.”

  “Information came a bit unexpectedly.” She told him about her conversation with the professor, and read off the meager list. “Can you get someone on it?”

  “I’ll do better than that,” he promised, voice grim. “I’ll send someone to scout outbuildings for an appropriate site and talk with your professor. Guides. Armed guards. Full funding. We’ll make it the best damned school in the city.”

  She knew she could count on him. “I’ll leave it to you, then. I’ll check in once I find Nick.”

  “You don’t think he’s waltzing around his old tent, do you?”

  “If he’s that stupid, I’ll lose all respect for him.” She stood as Nick’s agents made to leave, one making notes in old policeman’s flip notebook. “I think business has expanded a bit since we saw him last. I’m out.” She tapped her earpiece again.

  Tara followed them to the regular market at the old Tennis Center. She remembered how the place lit up with lanterns at night, hiding the grimness in shadow beneath the oily light. She’d gotten her taste for black coffee here, so scalding hot it was difficult to notice how bitter-stale it was, heated and reheated until the last drop had been consumed. To this day, a cup of coffee didn’t taste quite right to her unless it was—quite frankly—foul.

  Nick’s minions hung about another few hours, taking notes. At least a dozen people approached them, anxious. More than once, the one not taking notes extracted a little black book from an inside pocket and consulted it briefly before putting it away again with either a nod or a shake of the head. Both nod and shake elicited hunched posture from the recipient.

  Tara resisted the urge to call in the troops and every bolt of lightning in Vincent Dante’s arsenal. The game of exploitation and extortion had apparently served Nick well. Focusing on the resistance helped the time pass, as did imagining all the delectable ways a girl of her resources and creativity could bring the karma home to roost.

  Finally, Nick’s men left the market. She followed them across 97th and concealed herself in the trees to watch them make their way to the North Gatehouse. After a moment, Nick emerged, resplendent in new, stylish long coat and leather gloves, a stocking hat making his moon face all the rounder. A cashmere scarf draped his shoulders. Tara vowed to choke him with it.

  Together the trio walked down the road to a smaller building on the water. Tara followed, her heart thumping and fingers twitching. She could take all three now. She had the training. But she only needed Nick, the near-saintly, would-be kingpin of Central Park. He alone was responsible.

  Not to mention complacent. The note taker left the door ajar behind him, and the interior was dusty-dim. She slipped in, stepping lightly past a trio of rickety old administrative desks and beyond into the lines of warehouse shelving stuffed with a jumbled hodgepodge of goods. She faced down a desperate need to sneeze.

  The small stone building had been converted into some kind of storage facility and consignment warehouse, a natural evolution of Nick’s original tent on the south bank of the reservoir and the Shanties. Back then, he’d stored goods behind his “office” and hired local toughs to guard his merchandise. She remembered begging for Stephen’s life, offering every meager possession, to work off the debt for the next ten years. Twenty. Anything.

  Nick’s agents made their reports while he scribbled entries in a composition notebook, nodding occasionally. When they were done, he dismissed them with a sultan-like wave of his hand, still scribbling. They closed the door behind them.

  Tara soft-footed her way through the maze of shelving, stalking closer via a careful, circuitous route. One that put her, by ghostly means, in front of his desk. “Hello, Nick.”

  His head jerked up. Before he could form words, she shot her hand out and grabbed him by the throat. Then she yanked him half across his desk, scattering his gentlemanly pretentions onto the floor. Something shattered.

  His tongue protruded grotesquely as she choked him. One hand scrabbled at her deceptively small grip, the other reaching for her.

  She grabbed his flailing arm and used it to leverage him onto his stomach, released her chokehold.

  “What the hell—

  She slammed his face into unyielding wood of his desk. “Shut up. Or by all that is still holy in this world, I will carve the greed out of your grasping heart.” She clicked on her earpiece. Her voice shook with the adrenaline pounding through her system. “I’ve got him.”

  Chapter Four

  Being back in her regular clothes settled Tara’s hackles. So did being armed—armed was good. Leave it to Stephen to be ready for anything. The blue and black camouflage cargos sat snugly on her hips, tucked into combat boots. Her black tactical jacket shielded her from the cold, as did her fleece-lined gloves. Soft snow drifted peacefully around her, frost crunching under her boots as she returned to the warehouse. The tips of her ears tingled.

  She remembered how snow used to be white, when she was very little. She’d delighted in the purity of a fresh snowfall. She’d found hope in it.

  Now, even falling, the fluffy tendrils were tinged with gray, as though mixed with ash.

  The guards at either side of the door snapped to attention. She’d proven herself today, so they were a bit more official than usual. She appreciated the small distinction. One of the guards heaved the door open for her. Their prisoner jumped when it slammed shut behind her.

  The agent in charge whipped her a salute that would have done his drill sergeant proud. “He hasn’t said much of anything, ma’am.”

  “It’s all right, agent. We don’t need him to.” She strode through the ring of gun muzzles and stood at ease, hands behind her back. “Hello, Nick. May I sit?”

  Nick lifted his head, a strand of graying hair dangling over his face. His chair was lodged against the front of his desk, another chair a few feet away. “Who the hell are you?”

  She took the vacant seat as though he’d invited her to tea and crumpets. She crossed one leg over the other, channeling Gwen. “I really should thank you, you know. If it hadn’t been for you, Vincent would never have found me.”

  Nick narrowed his eyes at her. Then he threw his head back and laughed. “I wondered what happened to you. I had to rebuild my whole business after your boys pulled it apart and threw me out in the cold. If you think I’m saying anything—”

  Tara cocked her head with a friendly smile. “I’m sorry, did you think we required information? We have information, Nick.”

  His face went plum with rage. “If you’re threatening me, little girl…”

  She turned her smile down to her hands, unable to hide her amusement. There was nothing more satisfying than proof of good training. He hadn’t so much fallen for her opening salvo as tripped over it and fallen into a manhole. All she needed to hear now was the splash.

  “I know my hands aren’t very big,” she said in conversational tones. “But I’ve been trained to smash them through the occasional cinder block—jus
t as a mental exercise, you understand. The trick to it is pressure points.” She leaned forward. “The thing about the human face, Nick, is that it is chock full of pressure points. Here.” She tapped his chin. “Here.” Now she lay two fingers either side of his nose. “My personal favorites, here.” His head jerked back when she tickled the inner curves of his eyes with her fingernails. “And, of course, here.” She pressed the middle of his forehead with her index finger.

  Plum drained to the ash white of the snow outside. He gurgled.

  Tara’s smile didn’t waver. “Shall I tell these incredibly loyal and highly-trained agents what you did, Nick? Shall I tell them about Julien?” She could have sworn she heard twelve identical grips on twelve identical guns tighten. She suspected Nick heard it, by his expression. Or lack thereof.

  He gaped open-mouthed for several moments, but he finally got it out. “I was paid.”

  There was the splash. Tara leaned back, forcing herself to remain calm. “Do you honestly expect me to believe someone paid little ol’ you to leave the Park and your little ol’ play mansion on the Reservoir? Did you actually mean to hit Julien, or were you aiming for Vincent?”

  “I don’t know who paid me, not directly,” he growled. “It was someone from the Underground. And taking out Vincent is bad for business. The Foundation stops coming, my customers lose goods to trade.”

  So she’d been wrong. “Why Julien, Nick?”

  “Because I was paid. How do you think I got my play mansion?”

  “By your own brand of low cunning, I’m sure.” She folded her hands again and gave him one of Gwen’s patented compelling silences that just begged to be filled.