The match’s flame crept toward his fingers. He shook it out and tossed the spent stick into another bowl kept for that purpose. Strangely, he felt a little better for having completed this bit of silent liturgy, though the green candle was a poor substitute for his true desires. As this was a place of healing, the table held no black candles, but it was a black candle that Marcus wanted most of all. Leave justice to the barristers and night watchmen.
Black was for vengeance.
17: Magpie Theology
Selena lay on the cot—her cot, she supposed, though she felt no more at home here than at the grubbiest traveler’s inn—and studied the atlas of cracks and stains charted along the barracks’ stucco ceiling. Her dress, hastily torn from her body at the earliest opportunity, lay in a rumpled pile on the floor. Around her the other girls undressed more carefully, picking spots of dried food from lapels and smoothing out creases with saliva-dampened thumbs.
“Moping’s not gonna do you any good you know,” Mary said. There was reproach in her voice, but she softened it with genuine sympathy. “You’ll only make yourself more miserable.”
“I doubt that’s possible.”
Mary sniffed a small laugh. “Look, the parties don’t come around all that often. And besides, you get used to them.”
Selena grunted a noncommittal reply. In truth, Mr. Todd’s parties were not chief among her concerns at the moment. Her worry went far deeper, past her own predicament and to the data stick that was now—thanks either to her keen foresight or profound ignorance, she wasn’t sure which—in Simon’s possession. She prayed he would continue on to the coast without her and not just hole up in the pueblo to await her return—or worse, stage some hopeless attempt at rescue. Their job was to reach California before New Canaan did; nothing else mattered, not even their own lives. She’d tried to make this clear to Simon, but she could never be sure how much he was listening. It was up to him now. The thought filled her with dread for his safety and envy at his importance.
With the data stick out of her hands, her mind turned to the more immediate concern of her escape. The most obvious play was simply to flee—to pull a runner, as Mary had put it. She wore no chains and slept in an unlocked room, and Juarez had no walls or gates or checkpoints. But skipping town was only the first step, and her next moves were trickier: she’d need supplies enough to survive days or weeks in the wilds, currency to buy more when she reencountered civilization—assuming she eventually would—and, perhaps the greatest challenge of all, directions. She knew which way was west, but “west” was a big and brutal country that would abide no missteps. What’s more, the very reason for her journey was no longer in her possession. She could reach the coast and have nothing to show for it if she didn’t find Simon first, and there was no telling where he might be.
Perhaps she could reach him somehow, leverage Juarez’s regional network to her own advantage. Mr. Todd seemed like an influential man. Maybe she could hold him hostage, use him to get a message out to Simon. But even if he somehow managed to find Simon, what would prevent him from using her brother against her? Moreover, how would she manage to hold Todd in the first place? This wasn’t her city—she had no contacts, no power, didn’t even speak the language.
That left one more choice: waiting. The more she learned about Juarez and the indentured caste system that had swallowed her, the better equipped she would be to plot her escape. But waiting was agony, each inert second a hot ember in her belly, searing her guts and weighing her down until she buckled beneath its molten payload.
Indecision swirled endlessly in Selena’s mind. She yanked the plug and let it drain into its subconscious cistern, where it would sit in silence for a while before burbling up again. Her attention turned to the women with whom she shared the barracks, the twitter of a dozen conversations in Mejise. The atmosphere was surprisingly convivial, less a harem of slaves than an all-girls boarding school after final bell. They’d let her be after she returned, perhaps sensing her turmoil, but once she sat up, a few girls came over to chat, their words pecked out in pidgin Llanures or smoothed into coherent sentences by Mary’s translation, while others acknowledged her with a flick of the wrist or nod.
The hum of conversations cut off as Grace stalked into the room, her dress billowing about her hips. None of the girls looked her way or acknowledged her overtly at all, though the intent of their silence couldn’t have been more apparent if they’d scrawled it on a piece of paper and nailed it to her forehead. Grace ignored them all in turn, undressing as if alone. She put on a plain cotton dress to replace her ornate party attire and removed the pins holding her hair in its elaborate twinings.
Brushing a lock of hair from her forehead, she crossed the room to the statue of the skeleton woman perched in the corner. She knelt before the altar, lit a match, and touched the flame to the wicks of several candles gathered about the strange deathgod’s feet. Thin bands of colored smoke rose in wavy paths to the ceiling. A strand of mumbled prayer unspooled from her lips, a faint drone that jumped on occasion with flourishes of melody.
The other girls noticed, their conversations falling quiet one by one, until the room turned silent apart from Grace’s prayer. Muttered whispers followed, syllables rasping like whetstones on knives.
Two of the girls rose to the nods of their confederates and marched over to the statue where Grace knelt. They grabbed her under the armpits and hurled her toward the center of the room. She landed with a thud on her tailbone. The two girls loomed over her. One of them brandished an index finger in her face and shouted in machine gun Mejise. The former Senador’s sister absorbed the fusillade silently.
Eventually, the girls stopped berating her and returned to the flock, impish smiles breaking through their scowls. Conversation resumed. Selena nudged Mary and leaned forward, strangely afraid of being overheard.
“What was that about?”
“The girls don’t like princess types praying to La Santa.”
“You mean that statue?”
Mary narrowed her eyes. She seemed genuinely offended for a moment, though she masked it with an ironic eye roll. “Dios mio, northy, you really aren’t from around here, huh? That ‘statue’ is a shrine to Santa Muerte, patron saint of serfs and marcados. A Senador’s sister’s got no right to light a candle to her, not even a deposed one. La Santa is ours.”
Selena nodded as if she understood. She’d spent her childhood choking down the magpie theology of New Canaan’s Final Testament, and so knew better than to question the finer points of religious conviction. Her eyes drifted past Mary to Grace Delgado, who made no second attempt to approach the shrine—though she did look its way as she leaned against the wall, her lips twitching with the contours of an unspoken prayer.
Part III: The Vault
18: A New Hole to Work With
Selena walked up the cobbled path to the hacienda, her shoulders pulled back in a deliberate gesture of confidence. It was a posture she’d learned to wear unconsciously since she first began frequenting the street fighting rings in the slums of Jericho, a subtle reclamation of the space to which few men felt she was entitled. Through the years it had taken on the worked-in comfort of a ratty but well-loved sweater, but as she donned it today, something seemed off with its cut. The hem pinched where it should softly hug, the sleeves hung past her fingers with spaghetti limpness. She’d been branded only a week, yet already the ink on her skin had eaten its way inward, staining her mind with its indelible accusation of caste.
The door was solid oak and hard enough to sting Selena’s knuckles as she knocked. The creak of aged floorboards signaled movement inside. The door opened a few seconds later. Trejo regarded her with his one working eye, its broken, pupil-less twin squinting blindly into the middle distance. Though he and Selena were of a height, he had a way of appearing as if he towered over her, his basalt jaw a pitiless and unscalable cliff-face.
“Mr. Todd didn’t mention you’d been summoned,” he
said.
“I wasn’t. I came to talk to him about something.”
Somehow Trejo’s smile made his face even less friendly. “That’s how you think this works, hmm?”
“Why wouldn’t it? I’ve got something to tell him and I wanted to do it to his face.”
“A marcada don’t tell, girl. A marcada don’t even ask. Sometimes, maybe, she pleads. Mostly she just shuts up and does as she’s told. You’ve a cot and a kitchen, which is more than most in your position get. Or have you forgotten our little excursion already? I suggest you go back to it and thank whatever death-god you worship for Mr. Todd’s kindness.”
Selena opened her mouth to respond, but a voice behind the door beat her to it.
“Trejo? Who’s that at the door?”
“No one, sir,” Trejo replied. He spoke with his teeth clamped together.
Mr. Todd peered over Trejo’s head at Selena. His smile was warm enough, though tinged with a patronizing gleam Selena didn’t like.
“Why, if it ain’t our newest little foundling. Let the poor girl in, Trejo. No need to stand on ceremony.”
Trejo’s face suggested standing on ceremony was very much in order, but he acquiesced with a stiff bow.
“Right this way,” he mumbled and slid back to permit her entrance.
Mr. Todd led her into a cozy annex off the main hall. The room hadn’t been used during the party and so was new to her. It retained the grandeur of the entertainment areas, but on a cozier scale more suited to private chats than grand soirees. A stone hearth dominated one wall, a pair of antique swords hanging crisscross over the mantle. Armchairs formed a lazy half-circle around the fireplace.
Selena took the seat nearest the wall. Beside her, a mahogany bookshelf bore a series of matching leather-bound tomes with pristine spines. She glanced at the titles, noted a common author between them.
“Who’s Charles Dickens?”
Mr. Todd laughed at the question. It was a teasing laugh, but one without real malice, the sort of indulgent chuckle one gave to the unwittingly funny comments of a young child. Selena didn’t care for it. Personally, she would’ve preferred a genuine insult.
“Greatest writer there ever was,” he replied. “Or so I’m told. Reading makes me dizzy. The words all jump around on me. You know how to read?”
“Yeah.”
Mr. Todd smiled. “Then perhaps one day you’ll read ‘em to me. We can both get ourselves a little education.”
Selena gave no response to this.
“So what’ve you come to see me about?”
“It’s about the Iron Circle. I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before I get my own turn in the ring.”
“That’s right. Give Trejo a few days, and he’ll have something sorted for you.”
“I’ve seen the sort of fights he arranges. I’m not interested in doing a striptease or doling out punishment to petty criminals.”
Mr. Todd studied her, his head tilted slightly. His index finger curled along the sloping flesh beneath his lower lip. “Well ain’t that something. My girl’s got standards. What are you interested in, if not performing for your audience?”
“The Iron Circle’s a fighting ring, isn’t it? I want a fight. The sort the guys put on to open the show.”
“I’m afraid my girls don’t really do those sorts of fights.”
“Then put me up against someone who does. Man, woman, I don’t care. As long as it’s an actual opponent.”
Mr. Todd touched his fingertips together, making his two hands into a kind of gridiron. “I must say, that isn’t the sort of request I’d expected. I’ve had girls who caught a touch of stage fright, girls who wanted to show a little less skin. But girls asking to brawl with the Brothers of the Iron Circle? That’s a mighty queer request.”
“Look, I’m not asking to shirk or anything here. I’m a prisoner or whatever, I get it. But that … performance business isn’t me. If it’s recognition you’re after, I can get it. But I can only do it my way.”
“What makes you think I’m after recognition?”
“Fine, money then.”
Mr. Todd motioned around him. “Does it look to you like I’m hurtin’ for money? The plantation pulls in plenty.”
Selena blinked. Curiosity threw her momentarily off point. “Then why?”
“I’ve got my reasons.” His fingers bent and straightened, drawing his palms in and out. “You have any idea what happens to girls who got tossed in the pits with all that scum? Sleeping in piles on the dirt with the biggest, baddest, nastiest fighters you could name? It doesn’t happen much because they don’t last long. I recall one hacked off her own nose with a bit of broken glass. Wanted to make herself less appealing, you see. All she did was give the boys a new hole to work with.”
“I’m not asking to move in with them. I just want a proper match.”
Mr. Todd clucked his tongue.
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t have it. I’ve made an investment in you, and I don’t intend to squander it by having some knucklehead pound your pretty face to a pulp.”
“Someone already beat them to it,” Selena said, pointing to her ruined ear.
“An ear’s not a face. And while you may not be a siren like Theodora or Eleanor, you’re still not a pain to look at, you don’t mind me saying. Best we keep it that way.” Todd slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. The sound was apparently a signal, for Trejo scurried in an instant later. “Let the monsters have their scraps, girl. You’re under my wing. Enjoy it.”
Selena made her way out before Trejo could set his eager hands on her. She sensed no lust in his reaching fingers, but a keen disdain that was, somehow, even more unpleasant.
“Oh, and one last thing,” Mr. Todd said. “I’m happy you came to see me today. It gave us a chance to clear a few things up, get to know each other. In the future, if you ever have anything else you’d like to ask me, best to go through Trejo. He’ll treat you right.”
He winked at her and turned to face the unlit hearth. His eyes remained fixed at the empty fireplace as she left the room.
19: Tendrils of Hope
The gorge grew shallower as it squiggled west, rising with the land until they reached a common height and the fissure tapered shut like a wound poorly healed. A steady wind chased phantoms of dust along the plains, harrying them from their cracked sandstone tombs. The land here was even more lifeless than the pueblos he’d fled, a feat Simon would scarcely have thought possible. The tufts of creosote and tarwort had vanished, replaced by anonymous spiny weeds that put Simon in mind of yellow locust.
Crows cawed sardonically from the branches of a dead tree. Simon picked up a stone and threw it at them. It fell several feet short of the mark. He tried again and scored a blow against the tree’s knotted trunk. The birds flew off with an indignant ruffle of their wings, screeching their hoarse, inscrutable expletives.
Simon was beginning to feel he’d made a mistake. The impetus for his journey had been vague in the first place, driven more by curiosity than any concrete plan. He’d simply wanted to know where Emily could have gotten such pristine parts. And Emily agreed to show him. What he might do with those parts or where he might take them he had no idea, but at hearing the offer some long-stalled gear in his brain had started turning, setting the two of them in motion.
They’d left the next morning, supply bags loaded with boiled cornmeal, twists of sun-cured crow meat, and bottles of water made of a thin, brittle plastic that, once transparent, had clouded into a piebald translucence the color of sour milk.
A cuesta banded the earth to their right, and they scrambled up its crumbling face. Atop the ridge lay the ruins of a pre-War highway, its paved face weathered into chunks of tar-clotted gravel. The road led them through the rising foothills to a cleft in the rocky outcrops, where the remains of a pre-War town went about their long slow slide into rubble. Town was perhaps too grandiose a term: the buildings—what was
left of them—formed a parallel procession along the crumbled fossil of the highway, a dozen or so limpets clinging to a behemoth’s dead belly. Shards of brick and rotting lumber collected in the narrow thoroughfare, a steady accretion of refuse that would one day choke the pass entirely. Simon doubted such a tiny place would boast any former industry, let alone one with stores that could be plundered after so many years had passed.
Emily stepped nimbly over the slough of rubble and hopped through the sagging archway of what had once been a building. Its façade had long since fallen down, revealing concrete bones turned osteoporotic as time dissolved their rebar marrow into rust and oblivion. The result had an ugly, anatomical cast, a fractured skull with the face peeled away. The remains of the ceiling littered the floor, while the walls bowed inward as if in grief at their passing. Dust, stirred by the constant eddies of the wind between the chasm walls, barbed the air with its creosotic tang.
Simon sneezed into the crux of his elbow and wiped the reddening skin beneath his eyes. His eyelids felt like tissue paper, as if the slightest pressure could tear them in two. It seemed a cruel irony that his allergies would flare up even here, in this awful dead place.
They entered through the building’s gawping mouth. The remnants of its inner walls stood only ankle high in places, but Emily treated them as solid boundaries, tracing the halls as if the house were unbroken. Simon wanted to ask Emily what they were doing here, but he restrained himself despite the urge. He’d agreed to follow her and would have to trust her methods, however strange they might seem.
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