*
I remember staggering to Ariel and holding her, crying on her shoulder for I don’t know how long, until Malachi tapped me on the shoulder. “Pete.”
I turned to face him, wiping my eyes. “You’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” Both his eyes were blackening and he had a cut along his forearm, but the bleeding had stopped.
“What are we going to do now?”
“We bury Russ. We pull ourselves together. Then you and Ariel get out of here.”
“You’re not coming?”
He shook his head. “I’m going after him.”
“Who is he? A necromancer?”
“No. I don’t think we could have stood up to a necromancer.” He glanced at Ariel, back to me. “He’s a sort of right-hand man for someone in New York City. He scouts the east coast, doing whatever his master needs him to do. I’ve … heard of him before.”
I thought he was going to elaborate, but instead he said, “There are shovels in the garage. Let’s make it quick.”
I studied his face. It was stony.
Ariel watched silently as Malachi and I dug a shallow grave in the back yard. We laid Russ in it, wrapped in a white sheet. The body was soft in the wrong places. Malachi looked at it a minute. The bundle was wrinkled, bulky, deformed. There was nothing there to show it had ever been Russ. An absurd thought tugged at me: it looked like a gigantic marijuana cigarette.
Malachi dipped his shovel into the piled earth; it made a chuffing sound. Red Georgian clay, chunks of granite, and black earth spread an irregular pattern on the white sheet. He dug in again: chuff. I held my shovel tightly and did the same.
Asmodeus screeched overhead.
Malachi stopped and looked up. The falcon was circling. She spiraled down slowly and landed on the mound of earth beside the grave, pecking at it with her sharp beak. Cinnamon wings spread, darting eyes questioned.
Malachi drew his sword.
“What are you doing?”
Ariel nudged me reproachfully. “Leave him alone, Pete. He knows what he’s doing.”
“But—”
The sword hissed like a taut wire breaking. Malachi cleaned it, returned it to its sheath, and picked up his shovel. He started to push it into the pile of earth, but stopped when he saw my face. “If a man’s buddy dies,” he said, “he’ll live through it. The pain will lessen in a few years, and in maybe ten years he won’t even hurt anymore. But if the man dies before the buddy—” he cast another shovelful of reddish dirt into the grave “—the buddy dies, too. Slowly, painfully. I’ve seen it before. Believe me, Pete, it was the best thing to do.”
Ariel had turned away. I left Malachi to fill the grave and walked beside her. “Are you all right?”
“All this has been because of me. The killing … the blood … all my fault.”
“Ariel?”
“A man has just died for me—”
I reached up and touched her twitching neck. She jerked her head as if suddenly realizing I was there. Together we walked silently around the yard. The chuffing sounds soon ended, replaced by light gongings as the shovel blade tamped down the piled earth. Then a clang and a thud as the shovel was thrown to the ground. Malachi appeared around the side of the house. He climbed the steps onto the front porch. I followed him. Ariel remained in the yard.
Faust jumped up against Malachi, front paws scuffing his thighs. He absently scratched the dog’s head. He bent down and picked up the backpack he’d removed earlier. I was silent as he shrugged it on, adjusting the straps and belt. “We’re going to New York,” he finally said.
“All right. I’ll get my gear.”
“No. Faust and I. Not you.”
“Why not?”
“You and Ariel need to wander around, like you said. Don’t give anybody a chance to come looking for you.”
“Why can’t we come with you?”
“You’d hamper me. I’d be too busy having to keep part of my attention on you, and that might get me killed.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Pete. I’m going to New York.”
“So?”
“That’s my point. You don’t even know what you’ll be walking into. No, you and Ariel are safer if you head away from here—and not to New York. Head west.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I work best by myself.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He looked at me carefully before answering. “Because if I don’t, she’ll never be safe. Because it gives me a little more purpose than just surviving here in this city. Because I promised—I swore by this—” he patted Kaishaku-nin at his hip—“to protect her. Plus a few reasons of my own.”
I said nothing. He looked down. “Faust?” The dog sprang to attention. “We’re on our way.” The dog barked once and ran down the steps and into the yard, circling frantically at the front gate. Malachi and I walked down the steps. Faust ran back to us, jumped against me, and again headed to the gate.
Ariel looked at Malachi as he stopped beside her. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“We’re not coming with you?”
“It will be safer—for me and for you—if you don’t.”
She nodded, a glint of midday sun catching the tip of her horn. “I understand. Please be careful. And … thank you.”
He nodded. “Pete—take care. Don’t make yourselves obvious. Maybe I’ll see you again.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
He studied my face a few moments, then turned and strode out the front gate. Faust trotted gleefully at his heels. They turned right, heading north. Their brisk pace put them out of sight in a few minutes. Malachi never looked back.
“Now what?” asked Ariel.
“Now we gear up and follow him.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“You don’t think we should?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Bullshit.”
“All right. We’ll follow him.”
I nodded. “I’ll need a map. I wonder if he has a road atlas around here?” I walked into the house. My feet thumped with a lonely sound on the wooden floor. Looking back, I saw Ariel still gazing down the block where Malachi and Faust had vanished. The bodies of the two we’d killed this morning lay in grotesque positions near the fence. Flies hovered around them. Five yards from Ariel the ground was discolored where Russ had fallen, been crushed, died.
“Come on,” I said. She followed me in silently.
Ten
Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.
—Christina Rossetti, “Up-Hill”
According to the road atlas, New York was eight hundred sixty-three miles away. If we did well we’d average about thirty miles a day. That meant New York was almost a full month away. I thought about riding Ariel, but no. She wasn’t meant for it and I could never ask it of her.
So, backpack shouldered, blowgun slung, sword tucked neatly into the left side of my belt, Ariel and I walked along Interstate 85. We were on an overpass; I walked along the outside edge and looked out upon the quiet city. We’d passed no one along the road and I’d seen no more than a dozen people or so in the distance. I don’t believe anybody paid any attention to us.
Ariel was silent most of the day. My comments and questions were answered by short, tight replies.
It had grown completely dark by the time we were ten miles outside Atlanta. I made camp beside the road, a process consisting mostly of propping up my backpack, unrolling the sleeping bag, and setting weapons at ready. I untied the tan-colored canvas pack from Ariel and propped the cocked crossbow against a guardrail. I’d made her wear her pack just so I could have the crossbow; I wanted it readily available in case I needed to stop something from a distance. I decided not to light a fire, as I didn’t want to attract attention, h
uman or otherwise. Dinner was a light meal of crackers, dried meat, and warm grape KoolAid. Afterward I lay with my head propped on a bundled section of sleeping bag, shifting uncomfortably on gravel biting into my back. The moon was a bright disk, often muted; silver light outlined the gray scarves of clouds.
Ariel stood by the edge of the highway, immobile, looking in the direction of a dark billboard. She’d been that way a while now.
“Ariel?”
No answer.
“Ariel, I’m sorry. But I’ve got to go there. Not just to help Malachi because he’s our friend, but because if I don’t, we’ll be hiding as long as you’re alive. Being on the road’s fine, but being on the run stinks. It’s not living, it’s … . I don’t know. Existing by reflex, maybe.”
Still nothing from her, even though she turned her spectral head toward me. The clouds passed in front of the moon so fast that she shimmered: gray, pale silver, gray, pale silver for a full minute, brief gray, silver again.
“I just wanted you to understand. I have to go there—but you don’t. You could wait someplace for me—”
“No, I couldn’t. And I won’t.”
“All right, then. But this sulking isn’t like you. Once you make a decision you usually go along with it, no regrets. I can understand why you’re scared, but you seem … resigned.”
She twitched her shimmering head and walked over to me. A small comet’s tail flared from her right front leg as it scraped pavement. Damn, I thought, looking at the play of gray and silver on her graceful form, those clouds really are moving.
She lay down a few feet from me. I turned on my right side to face her. She lay head up, legs folded beneath her. Her horn pulsed with intermittent moonlight and a tiny spark winked in her eyes. I remembered a line from Romeo and Juliet about the inconstant moon.
“Pete,” she began. “That man, the one we fought today.”
“The griffin rider?”
“Yes. I think I ran into him once before.”
“Once before? But you were hardly more than a baby when I found you.”
“Yes. I’d been wandering, looking for others of my kind. Those few I saw were timid, oddly frightened of me. I didn’t know how to talk to them and they ran from me. One day—I don’t even know where I was—I woke up and something was holding me. I remember feathers and fur, and that smell I smelled today for the first time since then. Like hot metal, stifling—”
“Hot brass. The griffin.”
“Yes. It’s all so dim. I was so young, and I’ve tried so hard to forget it since. I remember a man’s voice, but not what he said. I didn’t know what any of it meant back then.” She said nothing for a few minutes. “I remember he tried to take me somewhere. I struggled. A unicorn isn’t meant to be taken, Pete, not ever. The same thing happens that happens to a buddy when its human partner dies. We die. In captivity, we die. It takes a long time. I remember the pain of being captured. But the rest of it is so joggled, so dim … . I remember it was colder than it is now—I think it was winter.”
“It was October when I found you.”
“I don’t even remember how I was being held, or anything, but—I was being taken somewhere and I didn’t want to be, so I twisted … and kicked out … . Whatever I hit went flying, and I heard my leg crack. I ran miles and miles before I even began to feel the pain.”
Realization hit with a surge of adrenaline. “Your broken leg … .”
The wind had been building as we talked. Now it gusted a little stronger, ruffling her mane. “I think I got it from the rider and the griffin, Pete. I think they were trying to take me to New York. And the necromancer there—he’s powerful.”
The growing wind was cold. The left side of my army shirt collar kept beating against my jaw. “And he wants you.”
“He wants my horn. Even with me dead it has value to him. Properties that would give him a good deal more power.”
The wind began to howl a sad dog’s song. Ariel stood, facing into the wind. “Something’s wrong. It doesn’t feel right.”
I stood also. The wind sent stinging hair into my eyes until I turned left. My hair blew back. It tugged lightly but insistently at my forehead, tickled my ears. “What doesn’t feel right? The wind?”
“The wind, the weather—the night.”
“Well, sure, it came up suddenly, but—”
“I feel it.”
The wind’s howl strengthened to a wail, then grew stronger still. The billboard Ariel had been facing vibrated from the force. Mercilessly the wind rampaged, flattening the grass of the wide median. It hurled itself in building gusts, hit like bricks, and bent the trees across the highway, spreading their leaves aside to reveal skeletal branches beneath. One swaying tree threatened to knock down useless power lines. Clouds skimmed in brief silver across the full moon’s face. The road signs beat a rapid tattoo, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. The wind screamed across the corners of the road signs and cried into their hollow posts, mournful and lost. Ariel glanced my way and I managed a smile. Still, I couldn’t hide my trembling, though the raging wind wasn’t that cold. It whistled off the tip of Ariel’s softly glowing horn. I stood my ground, leaning into the invisible howling. Ariel backed off a few steps as the buffeting grew stronger. Her hooves were darkly silver. “It’s got to stop, Pete.” Her voice was thin in the howl of the wind.
“It’s a hurricane. Or the beginning of one. A tropical storm—”
“No. This was spell-cast. There’s an intent behind it. Can’t you feel it?”
I closed my eyes. Yes, I could. The wind had raised an unearthly insect buzz, eerie, angry, and insistent, but there was something else—a menacing something, as if the wind were somehow spiteful and searching.
I opened my mouth to speak but Ariel walked to the road. She struck sparks and lowered her head, muttering. Reflecting sparks flashed orange along her coat, then vanished. Her horn seemed to collect the moonlight with a steady, bright silver glow and she reared up with an uncharacteristically horse-like neigh. As quickly as it had arisen the howling ceased. All was silent and still, but when I looked about I saw that the tree branches were still being whipped about and the grass still rippled. Somehow, though, it wasn’t affecting us.
“Something’s searching for us,” she said in the midst of the odd quiet. “Something powerful, stronger than me.” Her voice sounded as if we were in a small room.
“What do you mean, stronger? You stopped the wind.”
“No. I was only able to calm a sphere around us.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” The wind began to die down. The trees and signs shook less, the clouds slowed and the stroboscopic moonlight steadied. In two minutes it had dwindled to a light gale. “It was too powerful for me to stop; I could only ward it away for a small distance. And when I warded it off I could feel the power that had created it.” She turned from the road, talking as she came toward me. “I’m not sure what it meant. It felt like something was looking for me, or for something, but I don’t know why. Was it a warning? A show of force? I don’t know. But I know I felt the power.”
“But if our friend in New York did this, if he’s that powerful, then why are we still alive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe his power is weaker over this much distance. Maybe he needs to know exactly where we are for anything to work. It’s even possible that wind was meant for Malachi and the necromancer doesn’t even know we’re headed his way.” She lay down, folding her legs beneath her. No spot she picked ever had gravel to annoy her, rocks to dig into her ribs, or ants to use her for a midnight snack. “Or,” she added, “maybe he does know we’re coming and he’s letting us. It would save him a lot of trouble. Maybe the wind was a dare. The question now is: do we keep going?”
“I—you know I have to.”
“Then we go.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“No, I don’t want to. But you need to. So we go.”
I zipped myself into my sleeping bag, p
erplexed. My sleep wasn’t good when it finally came.
Eleven
The implacable mutual hostility between man and dragon, as exemplified in the myth of St. George, is strongest in the West. (In chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis, God ordains an eternal enmity between reptiles and humans.) …With one exception, the Genesis account of the temptation by a reptile in Eden is the only instance in the Bible of humans understanding the language of animals. When we feared the dragons, were we fearing a part of ourselves? One way or another, there were dragons in Eden.
—Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden
The white-tailed buck I’d been trailing for the last hour, trying for a good shot, finally stepped out from behind the tree that had been blocking him. I gradually raised the crossbow until the butt rested firmly on my shoulder. Head lowering until cheek rested against metal stock, I squinted through the scope: I know: a scope is cheating—but it also helped keep me fed. I’d run out of food a little over two days after we left Atlanta; I hadn’t exactly been thinking about what to pack in all the excitement. Today was our fourth day on the road and my stomach was grumbling. At least water was never a problem; I just dunked my flask in a nearby canal, creek, river, what-have-you. They were all clear, the water pure.
The buck lowered its head. The body was a clear shot in my sights. Stay there, you pretty bastard, I thought. Ariel knew I had to hunt to eat when we weren’t around cities, but she didn’t particularly like it, so she stayed around the Interstate or wandered about the woods while I sought game. I never worried about her scaring away my supper; no animal would ever know she was there if she didn’t want it to. If she had her way I’d be a vegetarian, but I liked meat.
I curled my right index finger around the curved steel trigger and thought about all the kids who’d ever seen Bambi. I drew a deep breath and held it. Fuck ‘em, I swore silently, they’re all grown by now—probably eating Bambi’s cousins to survive, just like me. I began to slowly squeeze the trigger: be smooth, be … .
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