by N. D. Wilson
“The old Skelton rooms were empty,” Gil said. “Looked as if they ducked into the vents. We tried to smoke them out.”
“I heard,” Bellamy said. “The whole wing had to be evacuated. Just the touch we needed after you destroyed the water cube.”
“You’ve been helping them,” Gil said. “For all your talk, you’re just another slobbering mortal son of Brendan.”
Bellamy sighed. “Tell Radu Bey that members of his Ordo are no longer welcome on the grounds of any holding or Estate of the O of B—but especially here. No treaties, no restrictions, but also no privileges. It’s time you left Ashtown. You and yours, mate. All of you lot. This fight is yours. Leave us out of it.”
Gil stepped up to the window beside Bellamy and looked straight down at the sun-leathered Australian. Bellamy sniffed. Gil’s huge body reeked of smoke and sweat, part singed hair, part wet dog. His thick lips curled into a sneer.
“I’ll leave when I’ve collected those three from you. Not before.”
“Really?” Bellamy smiled and nodded down at the harbor. The biggest seaplane was taxiing away. “That is your plane, isn’t it, mate?”
“There!” Diana yelled.
Through the staggered wall of tree trunks, Cyrus caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off the water. They were a little off course for the peninsula, but not badly. And no plane yet—they weren’t too late.
Cyrus adjusted and caught his heel on another log. Soft wood fragments flew as Cyrus plowed headfirst into a fern. Before he could even assess the pain, Antigone was pulling him up. She was flushed and breathing hard. The rest of the herd raced on.
“Almost there, Cy,” she said. “You’ve done good.” She looked down at his bare feet. “Oh, gosh.”
Cyrus started to look, but his sister’s hand smacked up into his jaw, holding his head up.
“Don’t look,” Antigone said. Her hair was moisture-glued down, and her eyes were wide. “Not yet. Just run.”
The two began to jog.
“You run well,” Cyrus said.
Antigone laughed. “I have shoes.” As they picked up speed, she thumped his shoulder. “And I have the same genes you do, Rus-Rus. Why wouldn’t I run well?”
Cyrus gave his sister a smirk and began to accelerate. “Same genes, different legs!”
“Cyrus!” Antigone yelled. “Look left.”
As Cyrus hurdled a log and sidestepped a moss-covered boulder, he scanned the tree gaps on his left side. He could see flashes of Ashtown’s harbor—bobbing, rocking sails. And then a glimpse of Gil’s plane, turbo-props whirling, chugging through the waves toward them.
Antigone pulled even with Cyrus, straining to see through the trunks. “Anyone chasing it?”
“Not yet,” said Cyrus. “Come on.”
The two of them surged after the others. Cyrus whooped, and when Diana looked back, he pointed to the approaching plane. She nodded and started encouraging Dennis and Jax.
Leaping and crashing over driftwood, Cyrus and Antigone finally burst onto the rocky shore. The rest of the group was heading toward the bare peninsula.
The big seaplane was two hundred yards offshore. While Cyrus and Antigone hurried after the others, the plane turned in a slow loop, coming alongside the peninsula, pointed out toward the lake.
Cyrus glanced back toward Ashtown—three small aluminum-shell boats with outboard motors raced out of the distant harbor.
“Go!” Cyrus yelled. “They’re coming!”
On the rocks, Antigone was easily faster than her barefoot brother. She raced ahead to the bigger group, already jogging out onto the peninsula—Diana in the lead, Nolan at the rear.
Cyrus’s ankles rolled, his toes splayed around driftwood, and his skin ground on the rock. Hobbling and wincing, he felt like an old man trying to escape his wheelchair.
He was such an idiot. Boots, boots, boots. Never again without boots.
A rock shattered in front of Cyrus. Shards sprayed his shins and arms and face. A ricocheting bullet whined off into space.
In the bow of the closest boat, Cyrus saw a muzzle flash—small enough to be nothing more than sunlight sparking on aluminum. Beside Cyrus, a driftwood limb exploded. Again, the bullet whined away.
Cyrus reached the water as another slug snapped through the air above his head. The cold water felt like heaven swallowing his feet and his branch-lashed shins and knees. He jumped into a dive, arms stretched above his head.
A bullet slammed into his pack, spinning him in the air. He splashed through the surface on his back and hit the shallow bottom. He turned and began pulling toward the throb of the plane’s big engines. The pack slowed him down, but he’d make it as far as he could below the surface.
When he grabbed his first breath, the plane was much closer. Everyone else was either on board or climbing into the side door, behind the wing and the roaring propeller. The boats were closer, too. Another bullet skipped in front of him and he dove back underwater. Swimming with the pack on was like flying a flag—a shoot-here dorsal fin.
Another breath, and he decided to risk it. Humpback whale or not, he kicked into his fastest crawl stroke. In another moment, he felt the hurricane wind thrown back by the propeller, dusting the water’s surface. He raised his head to find his sister at the side door, waiting for him with an extended arm.
She grabbed one hand, and Nolan grabbed the other. A second later, Cyrus swamped onto the floor inside the plane, and Nolan was slamming the door behind him.
Inside were several luxurious leather seats with glistening wooden tables between them. Back in the tail, there was a massive web-netted cargo space. In the opposite side door, Rupert was manning a huge gun hanging from the ceiling. A large glass shield was mounted around the barrel.
“Stay down!” Rupert yelled. Dennis, Jax, and Arachne were crawling into the tail. Diana was already there, pulling a long rifle out of the cargo space and slamming in a magazine.
Rupert was dripping wet. His wild eyes landed on Cyrus, and he nodded at the cockpit. “Get us out of here! Go!”
“Me?” Cyrus yelled. But Rupert didn’t look back again. His gun was chewing through a belt of rounds. A bullet from the boats splattered on his shield, sending tiny cobweb cracks through the glass.
Cyrus shrugged off his pack, grabbed his sister, and dragged her up into the cockpit. As Antigone took the copilot’s chair, Cyrus perched on the edge of the pilot’s seat, which was set far back from the wheel. His bare feet found the pedals, and he grabbed the wheel and scanned the controls for the throttle.
He found it and jerked it to full. The left engine roared, and the plane began to turn, twisting toward the peninsula.
“Two engines!” Antigone yelled. “Cyrus, two engines!”
Two engines, two throttles! Cyrus thought. He reached down and pulled the second throttle.
The right engine kicked in, and the plane lunged forward—straight at the shore. Pressing down on the left foot pedal with all his strength, Cyrus fought to turn the plane. The pontoon under the right wing hopped out of the water as it scraped over a rock before splashing back down.
A bullet punched through Cyrus’s window, and he ducked low in his seat.
“Okay!” Cyrus yelled. “We’re okay.”
He straightened the plane, moving toward the heart of the lake, and they began to pick up speed, bouncing over the choppy waves.
Cyrus watched his speed climb.
One of the boats was racing right in front of them, catching air off the waves. Gil was driving. A man with a rifle was bouncing too much to get a good shot.
Cyrus held his breath, bit his lip, and pulled back on the wheel. Nothing.
Antigone lunged forward and flipped two levers on the dash. “Wing flaps!” she screamed, and the plane nosed off the water. But Cyrus had already pushed the wheel in again.
The plane slammed down and plowed over Gil’s little boat. Metal squealed and metal crunched. Antigone bounced into the dash, and Cyrus slammed his face into
the wheel.
Bleeding out of both nostrils, Cyrus sat up and jerked the wheel toward his chest. The fat-bodied plane tore itself free of the water and slid up into the air with wings shivering, engines roaring as they climbed toward the sun.
Antigone was on the floor. “Ow,” she mouthed. She climbed back into her seat and leaned toward Cyrus. She had to yell to be heard. “I think you just flattened Gil! And your face!” She laughed suddenly. “Go, Team Smith!”
Cyrus wiped his bloody nose on his arm and grinned. “Sic semper draconis!” he shouted.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and lifted him out of his seat. Rupert Greeves dropped him onto the floor halfway out the cockpit door and stepped over him to slide behind the wheel. He banked smoothly right and then leveled out, staying low over the lake.
Cyrus sat up slowly. “Sorry!” he yelled.
Rupert glanced back and curled half a smile. “Still alive, yeah? Test passed!”
ten
DIXIE MIST
DIXIE SAT IN BED and stared at her alarm clock. The hands were in the right place—the little one past the four a ways, and the big almost to the six. And the clock was still ticking. She hadn’t been sure it would be. She never was.
Scrunching her face impatiently, she looked around her tiny room. A diagonal slab of moonlight ran from her window down to the lemon oil polish on the plank floor. That chunk of moonlight looked as solid as a metal slide. It was all the humidity in the air. Light just sat on it like that. But Dixie wasn’t turning on the air conditioner. That would mean turning on the generator, and she didn’t know when she would get more gas for that old thing. Five big cans had been full when her daddy had left. Now she only had one, and it was half full.
People got nervous when an eleven-year-old tried to buy gas—especially when that eleven-year-old looked nine. And nervous people asked questions, and then made phone calls. Plus, she was miles from the nearest gas station. Closer if she headed back through the woods behind her house and crossed the swampy tail of Rodney Lake into Mississippi. But that came with its own troubles. Still, she’d do it when she had to.
“If I have to,” Dixie said to herself. Her daddy might still come back and do it. She almost sighed, but instead, she sniffed the sigh away and glared at the moonlight, at the floor, at the clock.
It had been 189 days since Alfred Mist had kissed his daughter, told her he had a job to look into, and stepped out their homemade screen door. He’d even been careful not to let it bang behind him. He always was. Now that he was gone, Dixie was careful for him.
The big hand clicked onto the six. Dixie waited. She drummed her fingers on her bare knees. The windup alarm was sloppy. She refused to set the alarm for 4:29 a.m. just to trick the clock into ringing at 4:30 a.m. And when she set it for 4:30 a.m. and it actually rang at 4:31 a.m., she felt insulted. She didn’t care that it was old. No excuses. The clock only had one job to do. She had as many jobs as she could think of.
The big hand clicked another spot, and the little hammer tried to rocket between the twin bells, but Dixie’s hand slammed down before the noise had a chance to work itself up into a fit. She hated those bells. Why go to the trouble of making bells if you were going to make them off-key?
Dixie stood up and stretched in her long T-shirt. Then she stepped in front of her little mirror. Her mama’s picture was tucked into the frame at the top, taken on the day she’d married big Freddie Mist. Dixie had her mother’s deep-brown skin. She had the same wide-set eyes and loose hair. But she had her daddy’s ears, and her daddy’s square jaw that looked like it was made of brick. Of course, her square jaw was set on top of a long slender neck, not her daddy’s oak stump.
According to her daddy, she had a little trace of just about every kind of blood in her. When she’d finally beaten him at chess, he’d said she oughta be grateful for his Russian grandpappy. When she’d cooked him something that made him groan with hunger just from the smell, he thanked God for her mama’s French grandmammy. When she sang and when she smiled and sometimes when she was doing just about anything, he called her Dido, his Carthaginian queen. But mostly, he’d just called her Little Dixie, and sometimes Sweet Eve—mother of all.
Dixie didn’t know she was beautiful. All she knew was that she was alone.
“I’ll find him,” Dixie told her mother’s picture. “He’ll be back.” She glanced at the incompetent clock. Fifteen minutes to get where she needed to be and see what she needed to see. Plenty of time.
Five minutes later, wearing tight worn jeans tucked into her tall snakeproof boots, and a clean oversize black T-shirt, she stepped out the screen door and closed it gently behind her. The house was tiny—one story with a front door and two windows—but it was tidy and crisply painted.
Moving along a beaten dirt path beneath big Louisiana trees, Dixie hurried through continents of moon shadow and seas of moon silver. While she went, she popped the last of her breakfast of orange slices into her cheek and threw a long corkscrewed peel into bushes. All around her, crickets sang to crickets, and frogs belched to frogs. She stepped over a beaten-down log and around the sprawling roots of an ancient cypress tree. Down the slope, smothered in moonlight, the Mississippi River slid slowly past on its belly. Tonight, with the moon being so social, it looked like a river of mercury.
Dixie dropped into a crouch and looked upstream. There it was—her father’s dream. What he’d sold everything to buy. In the daylight, the old cigar factory looked like the beached and forgotten carcass of some creature from another time. A place to play in and explore, though Dixie hadn’t managed to get inside since her father had gone. But at night, it looked like the place might still be alive. And, as she had discovered last week, at 4:50 a.m, well …
Keeping close to the shadowy tree line, Dixie began to jog. She only had half a mile to cover.
Moriah Cigars had mattered once. It had mattered enough to build a factory on the banks of the Mississippi River—250 yards long and 75 yards deep. An army of old log pylons held its backside up over the ever-crawling water. Barges had brought in the tobacco leaf. Barges had brought in the workers. Barges had carried away boxes and boxes of cigars—enough boxes to build pyramids, to fill trains, to make men around the entire world feel wise and important, to make their mouths sour and their clothes stink.
Three stories balanced on top of beams on top of pylons. Paned windows and barn doors and pigeon roosts and brick smokestacks and forgetfulness. The river still rolled, kissing the pylons, willing to do its old work. But time had rolled further. No more barges. No more workers. Not for ninety-four years.
But Alfred Mist had made plans. Shops. A restaurant. The Big Muddy hotel. Swamp tours. River tours. Huckleberry Finn rafts for rent …
That factory had taken three more years from one more worker. It hadn’t yet given anything back.
Dixie slowed as she reached the near end of the structure. The dead factory behemoth stretched away from her, bent in the middle to match the course of the river. She could see beneath the building, into the forest of pylons anchored in the mud. The water threw moon glare up at her as she backed into the long grass beneath the trees.
Frogs. And a lot more frogs. She couldn’t even hear the crickets anymore. Something splashed. A small animal screamed in the darkness behind her, probably at a snake.
And then it happened. Lights. The old paned windows blazed, first at the near end, then marching down the length of the factory.
Dixie blinked, and her rib cage tightened. She could feel tears building—tears of fear, of worry, of anger.
With her eyes on the glowing windows, she began to jog along in front of the factory, toward the big new ramp her father had built in the middle. She could barely breathe, she could barely think, but she was absolutely-no-matter-what going to make herself look inside.
Smoke, or maybe steam, began to escape from the mouths of two of the tallest brick chimneys.
Dixie wasn’t jogging anymore. She was running. It
wouldn’t be her father. It couldn’t be. What could he say that would make sense?
The ramp was just ahead. At the top, a big barn door began to slide.
Dixie froze. A yellow slice of light. And then a little more. And suddenly, all at once, the door rattled open, banging against the end of its tracks.
A man limped out onto the ramp. Not Dixie’s father. A white man. In a white coat. With one arm missing at the elbow. He leaned on a cane. Behind him, a tall, strong shadow stood beside the open door, ready to throw it shut again.
Dixie’s eyes strained to capture anything, any promise, any hint that he might be … and then he moved. Not her father. He was shirtless—pale and blond.
Dr. Phoenix, once known as Edwin Laughlin, known as Mr. Ashes on his worse-than-bad days, let his weight rest on his bamboo cane. It bent beneath him. His burnt-off stump arm itched badly, and he ground it against his side. It always itched. His remaining hand gripped and regripped the silver knob at the top of his cane as he stared out into the bayou forest. His boat was late, but he didn’t mind. It was worth the wait.
His lower eyelid spasmed and twitched. It did that now. Thirteen months, that’s how long it had been. Far more difficult months than he had expected when he’d ripped the tooth out of that Smith brat’s hand. But finally, he was making progress again. Rupert Greeves had sniffed out his buildings in Miami, but no matter. The factory was working well. Soon it wouldn’t matter who sniffed him out, or how many men came with them.
He glanced back at the tall, blond body that stood at the door. The puckered bullet holes were still visible in its chest. The skin was white and blue, but of course it would be. He’d been dead for three years and kept in a freezer along with all the other sons and daughters of Brendan that Phoenix had managed to collect.
The man—of course, it wasn’t really a man anymore, just the shell a man had once worn—was still on his feet. And he had been for almost four minutes. That was a huge improvement. He’d walked where he was told and opened the door when he was told, and all with his frozen eyes firmly closed.