“Which one?” The voice was loud, rasping at the silence like a rusty file, and the tribesmen shuffled their feet. They wouldn’t give him away. They liked him. He’d always been just one of the lads. Kill’s heart beat even faster with renewed hope. They wouldn’t give him up to the dead creature.
“That’s him. Him at the back.”
Ace! The snake. The viper. He should have known. Kill turned and tried to bolt, but his feet dragged, like running through quicksand. A hand grabbed the back of his collar. He swung his fists, struggling to free himself. A knee jabbed him in the kidneys and he gasped. Hands grabbed his flailing arms and pinned them to his side, turning him around to face death.
Ace was grinning.
Even from her perch on the first level, Kat could see Ace’s triumphant leer. The crowd pushed Kill to the front, his tribesmen parting to let him pass. Most looked bemused, but some had already moved to stand with Ace and his two henchmen who were now holding Kill, his arms pinned behind his back, in front of the mounted death’s head and within slavering distance of the giant dog’s jaws.
Kat had never liked Kill. He was a bully and he was mean, but he also had weaknesses that made him human. He never hit the girls, for example, and though he would never intervene when one of the tribesmen got slaphappy, Kat knew it was out of cowardice, not because he approved.
Ace was grinning, and Kat was even more frightened of that look than of the skeletal rider of the giant dog.
“This is your leader? The best among you?”
“Nah, he’s just our chief,” Ace said with a smirk. The knight character barged forward and pointed at Kill.
“This is not Eblis! Nor is this coward worthy to hold his place. Where is he? Where are you hiding him?”
Kill squirmed and Kat could see his mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. He shook his head.
“Well? Speak!” the knight roared. The tribesmen stood there, their mouths open in admiration, like mobs do when they see the high and mighty brought low. Kat felt sorry for Kill. He wasn’t so bad, not the worst of them anyway. He hung his head and tried to turn away. Behind him stood Ace and the ferret twins. Behind them, the entrance to the mall yawned wide and empty. Kat could almost feel the tension in Kill’s muscles, knew he was bracing himself. With a last glance about him, he bent over, pulling his captors with him then straightened up hard, head-butting both of them in the face. They loosened their grip with a howl and let him go. He spun around and bolted for the entrance, but Ace was in his way. He dodged, but Ace was calmer, quicker. The ferret twins closed in. He tried to barge Ace, but the sly bastard pulled a knife on him. Kill hesitated for a fraction of a second, the time it took for the black knight to swing his sword.
When the fraction of a second was over, Ace picked up the bleeding lump that was Kill’s head and handed the trophy to the black knight. With a flamboyant gesture, the warrior threw the head into the misty shadows that flew in rags as the massive dogs pounced and fought over the bloody offering. He turned back to face the crowd of tribesmen.
“Eblis is not here. I sense nothing but fear and mediocrity. But we will find him, and when we do, we will return with him and the Bringer of Light. Until then, you will need a new leader. Behold! Your chief.” The black knight pointed at Ace. “Follow him. His word is the Light-Bringer’s until we return.”
Kat watched the pair disappear into the smog that rolled back sluggishly over the smoking rubble heaps. The crowd below broke around the crumpled body and the widening pool of blood where the head should have been. They moved in a daze, trying to understand what they had seen, anxious to get back to what had become normality, camping inside the bombed out shell of a shopping mall. Kat watched Ace, wondering how he would impose his authority on the drifting tribesmen. His lean frame danced from one foot to another in his excitement as he swung his rifle from his shoulder and into his hands.
“Hold it,” he shouted, struggling to keep his voice firm and authoritative. “Where d’you think you’re all going? What about that lot out there?” he jabbed the muzzle of the rifle in the direction of the pack of giant dogs left behind when the riders departed, growling and snarling at the tribesmen.
“They’re with those two weirdos,” a voice replied.
“Nah they ain’t,” another chipped in. “They’re just a pack of losers. Look. They’d even eat Kill.”
The animals crept closer to Kill’s body. One of them, possibly the pack leader, a dark brindled brute, darted forward and grabbed an arm.
“Oi!” Ace shouldered his rifle, aimed and fired. The impact knocked the brindled dog over, yelping shrilly and with a gaping wound in a hind leg. The rest of the pack set up a clamor and several made a dash for the body. Whooping with delight, the tribesmen all shouldered their weapons.
“Give it to the bastards!” Ace ordered and fired again. A deafening volley followed, and the hounds bounded off into the shadowy fog. Ace laughed, a high, piercing laugh that sounded close to hysteria. “Come on then,” he called, heading off after them, “I want every one of those filthy mutts destroyed.”
Laughing and whistling, the tribesmen followed, pleased at the action, pleased to chase the disturbing images of the horror story monsters they had just witnessed in action. Kat watched them go, blazing away at anything that moved, wondering how many of the senseless idiots would get bits blown off them. Wondering what would change now that Ace was chief.
* * * *
The present
“Madonna,” Carla whispered. “You really saw all that? The skeleton man and the black knight?” Kat didn’t bother to reply. Carla didn’t expect an answer. “If they didn’t come out of an asylum, who were they?”
Kat looked blank. “Who they said they were. You think anybody would make up a story like that?”
“But—”
“Carla, you’ve seen a rat man, you’ve seen drax. You saw what Tab turned into. You know about the hellholes. There’s all sorts of shit comes out of them.”
Carla covered her face with her hands and rubbed eyes wearily. “This is a nightmare.”
Kat shook her head. “I wish it was. At least the drac hunt was the last binge killing the boys went on. Even they realized after a while that their reserves of ammo weren’t endless. They don’t use the guns much anymore—if they even can.”
Carla was silent. That she and Tully had fallen through a loop in time, she was just about coming to terms with. But to have tumbled into the Book of the Apocalypse—Madonna! That was too much to take.
Kat put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here, Carla, before the Burnt Man comes back. Before he finds Eblis.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the next couple of days Carla saw little of Tully. She knew he was working on his defense plan, and now that she knew rather more about what was lurking outside, she grudgingly admitted the necessity for a certain amount of organization. What she feared, though, was that Tully was enjoying his new role too much, and Carla was not sure what her role was.
She shrank in on herself, shutting down her senses until she was just eyes and ears, watching and listening like a hunted animal. Flo was the hunter, of that there was no doubt, but the other girls began to have faces, to become part of the same frightened pack or herd, with the same aim—surviving.
* * * *
Flo watched, hands on hips, as the two girls crept back under the blind, two slight girls, little more than children, with weary, famished-looking faces. One of the guards reached out and fumbled at the skirts of the last, the one with hair the color of the palest narcissi, and roared with laughter as she smoothed down her clothing without even a backward glance. The dark-haired girl put an arm around her and the blonde one briefly laid her cheek on her shoulder.
“Had a nice night out, did you, girls?” Flo cackled. Carla burned with anger and was on the point of standing up and lashing Flo with all the pent-up venom of her tongue, when Kat put a hand on her arm and shot her a warning
look.
“We’re okay, Flo, thanks,” the dark girl replied, raising her head and looking the redheaded witch in the eye. Flo’s eyes narrowed, porcine and vindictive.
“Then get on with clearing up the breakfast things. You can’t spend all day on your backs, though I daresay you’d prefer it.”
“Yes, Flo,” the blonde girl said demurely, and headed over to the sinks, where Carla and Kat were scraping slime off the plates. Flo watched until the blonde and her friend had each picked up a plate to clean, then with a snort, turned away to torment the girls detailed to shake out the bedding in the boys’ room.
Carla stared in disbelief at the red welts that striped the girls’ pale, almost translucent skin, and the purple marks on their necks. They finished scraping and put down the cleaned plates in unison. The blonde girl looked at Carla out of porcelain blue eyes and smiled.
“I know your name. You’re Carla. I’m Dee.”
“Zo,” the dark girl said with the same slight upward curve of the lips.
Kat gave Carla one of her rare, fleeting smiles. “Dee and Zo have been together since kindergarten. They’re part of no tribe. They’re friends.”
And in the steady gaze of the two fragile girls, Carla saw strength—a light that refused to die. They were survivors. She smiled back.
* * * *
That afternoon the pizzeria cellar was finally unblocked, and Kat turned to Carla with a broad, almost wild smile on her face. “We’re through!”
Carla looked puzzled, unable to see why anyone would get so enthusiastic about a load of moldy tins.
“Things will happen now. You’ll see!”
“I don’t get it. What things?”
Kat beamed. “The other tribes, that’s what! As soon as they hear we found a new food supply, they’ll be swarming around here like…like…”
“Vultures,” Carla finished for her, suddenly realizing what that meant. “Tully’s plan?”
Kat nodded. “And ours.”
“You think Tully’s still interested?”
“Course he is. All boys like playing soldiers. He’ll grow out of it.”
Carla wished she shared Kat’s confidence.
To celebrate breaking into the pizzeria cellar, the girls in the kitchen opened one of the catering size tins of Italian plum tomatoes and added a couple of tins of pilchards. A cauldron of white haricot beans had been simmering most of the afternoon in an attempt to soften the ancient pulses.
Flo had got the message about warlord Thor’s aversion to beans, but she just shrugged. “It’s beans or nothing,” was all she said.
Flo doled out a portion of the beans onto a paper plate and sprinkled a little sauce over it. She put the plate on a tray with a plastic bottle of water and a tiny piece of tinned pineapple and handed it to Kat.
“Show her where the prisoner’s kept.” Jutting her chin in Carla’s direction she said, “She can take him his meals in future.”
When Flo turned away to issue a few more orders, they hurried out onto the walkway, Carla carrying the tray, Kat leading the way and carrying a piece of railing, just in case.
“This is the famous conscientious objector who’s going to make the planet green again, is it?”
Kat bristled at Carla’s mocking tone. “Everything he says makes sense. Ace is just too dumb to take any notice. He’s placing all his bets on the Burnt Man whisking him off on a drac charger to some psychopath’s paradise where he can really develop his talent for ripping the skin off living creatures.” She shuddered. “He’s a monster, you know. That’s why the Burnt Man’s friends left him in charge.”
“You really think they’re coming back, don’t you?”
Kat nodded. “And soon. The boys the Burnt Man left are as much men as they ever will be. There have been strange things happening lately too.” She dropped her voice to a frightened whisper. “Things have come out of one of the wormholes, the one the other two creeps came out of. Things that shamble off and hide, things that even the drax are afraid of. They’re waiting for something—or someone.”
Gooseflesh crept up the back of Carla’s neck and spread over her scalp. “Tell all of this to Tully. He’ll come with us then.” However hard she tried, Carla could not bear the thought of leaving Tully behind. Tully was all that remained of the world of school and sunlight, hot meals, comfortable beds, friendship and no fear. He might have changed, but he was still Tully, and Carla knew she could never resign herself to leaving him behind in the crumbling mall.
They had almost reached the east side exit when Kat said, “It’s here.”
The former bank had been one of the first places to be ransacked and partially demolished, as gangs tried to break into the cash distributor. There were no vaults with safes full of gold bullion where desperados could be held until the sheriff turned up, but the manager’s office did have a sturdy lock on the door. Kat knocked.
“How very civilized,” Carla mocked. Kat ignored the comment and unlocked the door.
“Supper time!” she called cheerily. Taking the tray from Carla, she stepped into the room. There was a moment’s silence before an explosion of invective from the prisoner.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, not again! You can tell that scrawny little gobshite of a führer of yours that he can make a funnel out of this paper plate and shove these beans up his arse!”
Madonna! Carla felt her heart lurch. Standing outside in the freezing cold wind that whipped her face with flakes of volcanic ash and the acid stink of car wreckage, all of a sudden it was as if a great beacon had lit up the dreary landscape. Maybe there was hope after all. In any case, she had to find Tully and break the news.
* * * *
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Jim’s face glowed with excitement.
Tully looked blank. “We’ll be getting tomatoes with our beans?”
“We’ll be getting every fuckin’ tribe in the area homing in on this place to raid it. That’s what!”
Tully felt stupid. Food, even tins of beans and tomatoes, was worth killing for now. If this was the spark that was to light the blue touch paper, he was only a matter of days away from getting Carla out of this hell on earth. Soon all the tribesmen for miles around would be too busy knocking the shite out of one another to notice if a few of them left the festivities and headed off into the wasteland. He let a foolish grin spread across his face.
“Let’s find Carla. It’s been tough on her just having to wait.”
Matt gave him a curious look. “That’s all the women can do. And I don’t think you realize what they’re waiting for.”
Tully felt even more stupid and guilty. He blustered, “Then the best thing we can do is put her in the picture, isn’t it? We’ll have to ask Flo where Carla’s working today. Jim, you do the talking. She’ll give you a more or less civil answer.”
* * * *
They had almost reached the east side entrance hall when they saw the two figures moving in their direction. They were leaning on one another for comfort, their arms wrapped tightly across their chests, hurrying through the empty shell. The light had almost gone and the wind howled through the vast opening, sending pieces of litter soaring like pigeons, and the twisted metal struts hanging free groaned like the timbers of a ship in a high sea.
“Carla?”
The figures stopped. Tully called again. “Carla?”
“What do you want?” The voice was hard, suspicious. It was full of hurt. Tully raced toward the voice, running to leave behind the knowledge that he was the cause of her pain, running to put it right.
“Carla.” He stopped. Carla had moved out of his reach.
“We have to get back. The women aren’t allowed to roam about on their own. Didn’t you know that?” Carla’s voice was bitter.
“Carla, I—” Tully’s hand moved impulsively.
“Don’t! You know what the women are doing while you’re swaggering about with your rifles and your…your new friends? They’re locked up, or they’re dig
ging through the rubble for junk to eat. Or they’re just waiting for your friends to call for them like…like pashas with their harems. They’re cold and hungry, and they have no hope anymore!”
“I do know that, Carla, and—”
“They just wait, like cows in a stall, to take whatever crap you boys have got lined up for them!” Her voice was shrill, pained. He could have reached out and touched her if he’d wanted to. But he knew she wouldn’t let him. First, she had to forgive him.
“Carla, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” The voice was still hard, but there was a crack in it, as if she was close to tears. Tully couldn’t stand it any longer. He reached out a hand, slowly, as if she was a frightened animal, and touched her face.
“For being a warlord.”
For an instant he was aware of Carla tensing up beneath his fingers. He held his breath. “Carla,” he whispered, as tenderly as he could, and gently pulled her into his arms. She resisted at first then let herself be drawn, to hide her face against his chest. He felt her shaking. “Carla,” he whispered again, mortified.
Carla lifted her face to his. She was shaking with laughter.
Carla wiped her eyes, suddenly serious again. “Oh, Tully, Kat’s told me some really awful things. We have to get out of this place. There isn’t much time. And I’ve got the most amazing piece of news! Where can we go to talk? Come on, quick!”
“Whoa!” Tully held the wriggling Carla at arm’s length. “The boys here told me about what we missed, if that’s what you mean. And they don’t like what happened any more than we do. We don’t have to have secrets from them.”
Carla’s face darkened, clouded with suspicion. “You make bosom pals pretty easily, don’t you? What about your old friends?”
Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1) Page 14