Ryan had been only half listening but his ears had pricked up at mention of 1913.
“But that would make you…”
“Old. Yes, thank you for pointing that out.”
Emma said, “May I ask you many years?”
The man frowned. “Do you know what a year is? A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.”
This is one cheery guy, Ryan thought.
“I’ve long since stopped counting,” he went on, “but I can tell you my age is well over a century and a half.”
Telly was scratching his head. “I’ve heard time moves differently here, but didn’t realize it was that different.”
Ambrose shook hands with Emma and then Dillon, then pointed to the Falzon bracelets. “We’re going to have to get those off you as soon as possible. Anybody who sees them and realizes you belong to our budding dictator will turn you in before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’.”
Ryan brightened. “You know how to get this thing off?”
“It’s not easy,” said the old man, “but I know someone who’s figured out a way to burn it off.”
Cringing, Emma backed away and folded her arms. “That sounds awful.”
“We’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.” Ambrose managed a smile that looked sincere. “Don’t worry about it for now.”
Ryan had to ask. “How’d you wind up on TV here?”
“I started out as a reporter – I’m a journalist by trade, you know. In my quotidian existence I pass as a Lycan. You can too. They’re just as human as you or I except when they lose their temper or they’re on a blood hunt. And of course, at the height of the full moon when they have no choice about changing.”
“I still can’t believe they do that,” Ryan said.
“Believe it if you want to survive.”
“Ryan’s not good at taking things on faith,” Emma said.
“And well he shouldn’t. Faith is belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge. But what I’ve told you is not based on faith. I’ve been living it. But enough about me. Tell me what you’ve been doing here in Nocturnia.”
When Emma mentioned they’d been forced to work picking sangreflors, his gray, bushy eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Not at Armagost Farm!”
“Yes,” Emma said. “You know that awful place?”
He nodded. “I have an old friend there.”
“Amelia?”
“Yes. Another refugee like me. I do wish you’d brought her with you. I miss her. She set up this enclave, you know. Quite a woman. Indomitable spirit.”
“It was kind of a last-minute thing,” Emma said, glancing at Telly. “We didn’t know we were going.”
“Speaking of going,” Telly said, “I’d better be doing just that.”
Ryan felt a stab of unease. “What? You’re leaving us here?”
“I’ve gotta get back to the compound before they discover I’m gone.”
“But what’ll we do here?” Emma said. She looked as scared as Ryan felt.
“Stay safe and live free,” Ambrose said.
“But I want to go back home!” Ryan said. He felt tears threatening to flow but held them back.
Telly went down on one knee before them and took one of their hands in each of his. “That’s why I have to go back. You’ll be safe here while I work myself into Doctor Koertig’s good graces – l’ve gotta learn how to operate his breach generator. When I do that, I’ll come for you and send you back to Kansas.”
“What is a ‘breach generator’?” said Ambrose.
Telly explained as briefly as possible.
Ambrose nodded. “Sounds promising.” Then he gently laid one gnarled hand on Ryan’s shoulder and another on Emma’s. “We’ll take good care of you. We’ll teach you how to pass as lycans.”
“But we’re going back!” Ryan said. The tears were really threatening now.
“I hope so,” Ambrose said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “but you can’t spend your time counting on that.”
“Why not?” Emma said, and Ryan thought he saw her lower lip tremble.
Ambrose sighed. “Because no one who’s crossed over to Nocturnia has ever made it back.”
Ryan felt as if the floor were falling away beneath his feet as he turned and looked up at him. “Not ever?”
Ambrose shook his head. “Never.”
38
Ergel arrived at the address the Blackstads had so reluctantly provided. He even had the password – not that it would do him no good. He could hardly march up to the door and present himself as a runaway human. But he took a certain amount of pride in knowing how cooperative the Blackstads had become under the persuasivities of his silver bar.
Wouldn’t that be something though? Walk up and knock, present himself as a human, and give ’em the password. Larf at their shocked expressions, then bust some runaway heads.
He looked up and down the deserted street. He supposed the warehouse district was a good place to hide a bunch of fugitivating humans. The light of a rising gibbous moon lit the street, but cast inky shadows elsewhere. No sign of the car about. No lights on inside. Could he have beaten them here? Was that possible?
Only one way to find out.
With Bessie in hand, he crept up to one of the windows of the big building and peered inside. Moonlight streamed through the side windows and skylights revealing an empty space within, littered with debris but showing no sign of inhabitation.
“No!” he shouted. “No-no-no!”
Those bloody Blackstads had lied to him! Gave him the address of an empty warehouse! He’d kill them! He’d–
The sound of flapping wings – large, leathery wings – made him turn. Half a dozen forms were fluttering down from the surrounding rooftops.
Nossies.
“Well, well, well,” said one of them as he landed. His wings folded and disappeared behind him. “Looks like we’ve got a trespasser.”
“Ugly trespasser,” said another who sounded girlish.
Ergel couldn’t make out the features of their shadowed faces, but counted four males and two females.
“Got some nerve hittin’ our turf.”
At any other time Ergel might have been frightened. Gangs of nosferatan punks were a nighttime scourge in lots of cities. But right now he was too angry to be scared.
“Lookin’ for some runaway humans,” he told them. “Y’hasn’t seen any, has yeh?”
They laughed as one.
“Ain’t no humans on our turf,” said the first, who seemed to be the leader. “Least not the livin’ kind.”
“Well, then, I’ll be movin’ on.”
In a flash they surrounded him.
“Not without paying a toll, troll.” He barked a harsh laugh. “Hey, that rhymes. You trolls know all about tolls, right? This is our street. We want a toll.”
Ergel felt his anger boiling toward fury. “How much?”
“Not cash. Blood.”
That did it. He lashed out with Bessie at the lead nossie who raised an arm as the whip’s business end snapped toward his face. It wrapped around his wrist. The leader looked at the whip, then at Ergel.
Sharp teeth bared in a smile. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
And suddenly they were on Ergel, all six of them, all over him. He dropped Bessie and kicked, punched, and even bit. But nossies doesn’t feel pains like normal peoples – only zombies feels less – and they’re strong. In no time they beat him down and pinned him on his back, one each sitting on his legs and arms, one holding his head as the leader leaned over him.
“Never had troll blood before. Let’s see if it’s any good.”
Ergel struggled with all his strength, but with his limbs pinned he was helpless. His head was forced to the left, exposing his throat. The leader leaned in and drove his fangs through the skin. The pain was fierce but Ergel refused to cry out. He clenchated his teeth but gave no other sign that he even felt the bite.
>
The nossie lapped once at the blood, then leaped to his feet and began spitting.
“Ugh! Awful!” More spitting. “I need to go wash out my mouth!”
His leathery wings unfolded from wherever nossies hide them, and he took off into the night. The others released Ergel and followed. He lay there for a few heartbeats and watched them, then struggled to his feet.
Quite a beaten-down they’d given him, they had. He hurt all over, especially his savaged throat. Good thing trolls heal quickish. But still, he didn’t feel much like heading back to Wilmton and the Blackstads. They’d probably runned off to hide with some no-carn friends. He could burn down their house, just for funs, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to the runaways.
He’d have to stay here in Balmore and see if he could gets a bead on them somehow. His best bet was to find himself some area trolls and talk to them. Maybe they’d seen or heard something usefulish.
Right now he wanted to get out of this neighborhood before those nossies returned and decided to take out their toll in a currency other than blood. Like maybe troll hide.
Ergel shuddered and limped down the street as quickly as he could.
39
Emma felt a warm kiss of the sun on her closed eyelids. Rolling away from the light at her bedside window, she opened her eyes and took in the room where she fallen asleep the previous night. The cramped dormer space under the open-raftered peak of the roof was barely big enough for two small beds. Ryan still snoozed beneath a thin blanket. She gently tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, you awake yet?”
“Aw c’mon, sis! What’re you doing? What’d you do that for?”
Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to be awake by myself.”
Ryan groaned, stretched. “Great… well, I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Emma regarded him as he tried to act upset with her and she couldn’t help but smile. Her little brother was a charmer for sure. He had that cute way of looking at you that was so disarming with his puppy-dog eyes. When he was older, the girls were going to be falling all over him…
Maybe not, though. Not if they ended up spending the rest of their lives in this awful place.
“Ryan, what’s going to happen to us? What’re we going to do?”
He sat up, tossed off the blanket, looked at her with a small grin. “Hey, you heard what Telly was talking about. He’s going to figure out how to get us back home.”
“Do you really think he can do it?”
“C’mon, this is Telly we’re talking about – of course he can do it. He could probably build his own breach generator.”
Emma so much wanted to believe that. She hated this terrible world, and hated even more the idea of being on the run for the rest of their lives.
“But last night, remember? Ambrose said it’s never happened before.”
“Yeah.” Ryan stood and stretched as he looked out the window. “Yeah, I know. And it really bothered me until I started thinking about it.”
Emma joined him at the window that looked out on a dingy street three stories below.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in the past, people like Ambrose and Amelia who ended up here from Earth – our Earth – did it totally by accident. None of them ever had any idea how it happened… but we know how it happened to us. And so does Telly. And what has been done can be undone. That’s a big difference, don’t you think?”
“I hope you’re right, bro.”
“I am,” he said in a low, even voice.
Emma considered Ryan’s logic and his faith in their older brother. And that was what it was all about when things were bad… you had to have something to believe in. Emma wanted to believe in Telly, but he’d never seemed the hero type.
“What do you think of his idea of leaving us here while he goes back to hang out with Falzon and his bunch?”
Ryan paused, then said, “Well, I’m not crazy about it… I mean I’d rather be with him because he’s figured out how to survive in this place. But if he thinks we’re going to be safer here – for the time being at least – then I have to trust Telly.”
Emma had to agree. Telly had at least learned not only how to survive in this strange world, but to integrate himself into it, become a part of it. And that was something Emma knew she could do if she had to, but not something she cared to consider. On their first day on that awful farm Amelia had whispered, “Never surrender.” Becoming part of Nocturnia meant surrendering to it. And she would never surrender to a place that treated humans like cattle.
But if she had to stay in Nocturnia for a while, she wished it were someplace other than here… in Balmore. That bad feeling from last night lingered. If anything, it was stronger this morning.
A knock interrupted her thoughts.
“Come on in,” said Ryan.
They both watched the bedroom door swing open to reveal a broad-shouldered boy of perhaps fourteen. He had longish light brown hair and lean European features. Emma found him immediately attractive, sensing something… heroic?
“Good morning,” the boy said. “I’m Cal. I’m part of our little group here. You guys want some breakfast?”
Ryan smiled. “Sure!”
Cal escorted them downstairs to the kitchen where a table had been set with china and silverware. A pleasant medley of cooking odors filled the space. Ambrose leaned over a stovetop flipping pancakes on a griddle.
“You can cook?” Ryan said.
“I’ve held all sorts of jobs in my day,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
He doesn’t smile much, Emma thought.
“I’d like to learn to cook when I’m older,” Ryan said. “Then I can fix myself some awesome meals.”
Ambrose shook his head. “Prolong your childhood as long as possible. It’s the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth. Enjoy it while you can.”
Emma smiled as she and Ryan took places at the table. That’s when she noticed Dillon seated in a chair at the far corner of the room.
“Aren’t you going to join us?”
When she said that, Cal turned his attention on Dillon with a soft but penetrating gaze. He bore an expression that seemed one part suspicion and the other curious amusement.
The blond boy looked uncomfortable, shook his head. “I don’t think so. Thanks, but I’m not hungry. I… I’m not feeling all that great.”
Ryan picked up a fork in anticipation and grinned. “Well I sure am! Can I have yours?”
Ryan’s crack was just enough to break the awkward moment of tension, and Emma realized she’d been holding her breath. Cal broke off his stare at Dillon and began helping Ambrose serve the table.
As the four of them began to eat, Ryan had a lot of questions, and Emma did a lot of listening. Ambrose and Cal provided answers, and she learned how Amelia had started the Balmore human enclave decades ago. She’d been captured while helping some slaves sneak away from Armagost Farm. She could have escaped but decided to stay there for a while and work from the inside.
Currently the enclave consisted of ten members spread among three houses in the neighborhood. Ambrose and Cal were the group’s nominal leaders because they had been part of it longer than anyone else here.
As for Cal, Amelia had found him wandering the streets as a toddler. She raised him like her own child until her capture. No one ever discovered where he had come from or anything about him other than a monogram on his pajamas with the letters CAL. That became his name.
Emma wondered what that would be like – to have no idea who you really were… not even your real name. She wanted to ask him if he’d ever tried to figure out anything about his past, or if he had any idea about the meaning of CAL, but decided to let it wait till a later time. When she knew him better.
And she definitely wanted to know him better.
She found something inherently attractive about him. The timbre of his voice
, the way he moved his hands, the posture that suggested strength and confidence. It all combined in ways that made Emma want to trust him, and more importantly, be his friend.
40
In the afternoon, after a man named Horace had come by with a special set of tools that severed the slavery bracelets, Cal fitted them all with patches of fake fur for their palms.
“At your age you need only fuzz,” he said.
Emma ran her finger over it. “Even girls?”
“Even girls.”
She noticed Dillon staring at his palm with a strange expression.
“What’s wrong?”
He looked at her. “You have no idea how weird this is. No idea at all.”
“I think I do,” she said.
Never in her life had she dreamed she’d be gluing hair to her palms.
When they were finally, in his words, “presentable,” Ambrose allowed Cal to take Emma, Dillon, and Ryan on a tour of the surrounding area. He wanted them to be aware of places to avoid as well as others that were relatively safe. It seemed easy to blend into the landscape of a large city and not get noticed by the wrong people, but Cal stressed another aspect of urban life of extreme importance – cities and their neighborhoods possessed territories usually defined by ethnic or cultural bonds.
“Even though we’re part of Lycanthum,” Cal cautioned, “the city has plenty of areas you’ll want to avoid – Little Trollheim is rough, and getting caught in Nossie Town at night can get you killed.”
“Sounds like living here is a double-edged sword,” said Ryan.
“It can be if you’re not careful.” Cal gestured down a side street. “Every little neighborhood devoted to one of Nocturnia’s other cultures can be dangerous – at different times, for different reasons. That’s why I want you to pay attention.”
They did their best. Ever since coming to this terrible world, Emma had been fighting a cloud of despair and fear, but meeting Cal had instilled a new feeling of hope. He had the ability to make her believe she could survive here until the day she could escape.
Definitely Not Kansas (Nocturnia Book 1) Page 20