Carry the Flame (18 page)

Long fat pillows extended the full width of the bed, which could have slept five or six girls easily. Bliss noticed a quill poking out of the one in the middle. It might not have caught her eye but for the dark down puffing out below the pale tip. She'd heard of goose down and thought it possible that geese had survived in the North, but how did their feathers get all the way to the desert?

She wished she could spread out on the quilt, rest her head on one of those fluffy pillows and close her tired eyes—but not with the Mayor pushing aside the canvas only feet away.

He strode into the room like royalty, four subalterns by his side. One of them carried the M–16. Since the attack on their camp, Bliss had rarely seen the rifle out of her mom's hands. She had little idea where they'd taken her mother, only that she and the girls were pushed into the City of Shade far from where Jessie and Burned Fingers had disappeared into the shadows.

She flinched when the Mayor took the weapon and, beaming oddly, swept the muzzle past each of them. Having fired the M–16 on full auto, she knew how easily you could work the trigger. She was considering the potential mayhem when the Mayor lowered the rifle, still smiling “like a bounty hunter.” That's how her father once described a man who loved to ensnare people. The Mayor sure did.

He waved away all but two of the guards, leaving one on each end of the line of girls. Everyone but Imagi was quiet. The round-faced girl sniffled noisily.

Bliss glanced at the M–16 as discreetly as she could. It was the single weapon that could allow her to blast their way out of the City of Shade. Whatever the Mayor wanted to do with them, short of murder, it wouldn't be with the rifle in his hands. She might get a chance to grab it. “You makes your own breaks” was another line her dad had favored. But he'd never caught a break with Burned Fingers, whose marauders bashed in her father's head and put him in a coma.
Killed
him. If anyone from the caravan had to die in this cesspool, she hoped it would be that son of a bitch.

She looked left, sizing up the guard, who couldn't have been older than twenty.

The Mayor caught her glance. “You like the young man?”

Bliss shook her head, but let a smile crease her face. Better to have the Mayor think she found the guard appealing than to divine her deepest impulse: murder.

She wasn't squeamish about shooting anyone who threatened them, and when the other girls, or Jaya and Erik, passed the time arguing about the morality of killing, she remained quiet. Debates did not interest her. She had already slain Zekiel, the man who called for the massacre of her camp, saving her mother from him in the end. Survival trumped all. She would do it again—
now,
if she had even a small chance of succeeding. Everything she had witnessed in the last few hours convinced her the horrors begun in the desert would only worsen in the shadows.

The Mayor laid the M–16 on the bed with the muzzle resting on the pillow. The weapon looked strangely human. He sat beside it. “You come to me,” he said to Bliss in his silkiest voice. “I want you to take your eyes off that young man. A girl so beautiful, she can distract young men and make them wish they kept their eyes where they belonged.”

From what Bliss had observed, just about any girl could turn the eye of an older man. The Mayor's gaze traveled the length of her.

“I am a man of vast wisdom,” he added. “Not like your mother or father. I am an elder of an ancient tribe, so old you cannot imagine. You listen to me, and I will tell you things you never knew. Come over here. Your world will grow. So will you.”

Bliss feigned interest as she stepped past the younger girls, including her sister. She offered Imagi a comforting pat and wished she hadn't. The child grabbed her arm tightly. Bliss worked herself loose, to the amusement of the Mayor, and moved on, looking for a weakness as she approached him. She needed to stun him long enough to hurl herself past his sizable body, grab the rifle and kill him.

As for the girls, she would yell for them to get down and hope for the best. She didn't see all of them getting out alive, not after their raw panic during the raid. If the M–16's magazine was full—and her mother was meticulous about such life-and-death details—she could mow down the Mayor and his guards and grab the kids. Some of them were a year or two older than Bliss, but seemed like children to her.

Broadening her smile as she moved toward the Mayor, she calculated that as long as she stayed close to him—even clawing his eyes out—the guards wouldn't dare shoot. They would have to drag her off, giving her precious seconds. And she knew how to use them.

Bliss weighted her last step, then launched herself at him, stabbing her fingers at his face.

“Stop!” a guard screamed.

The Mayor reared back, drawing away from her—and the M–16.
Good-good.
But he covered his face before she could rake his eyeballs. She reached quickly for his crotch and squeezed his testicles, twisting them fiercely and yanking hard enough to uproot a bush potato. He yelped and sucked air loudly.

She rolled over him, pulling her limbs tightly inward to give him less to grab, then seized the weapon, surprised at the ease of recovery. But even in his agony the Mayor's hand was fast as a wasp, forcing the barrel deep into the pillow.

“Down,” Bliss screamed at the girls, and pulled the trigger, hoping the gunshots would shock him into letting go. White, brown, and gray goose down exploded into the air, showering the two of them. The canvas wall ten feet behind the bed jittered from the fusillade, but the rifle claimed only feathers and canvas. Though gasping, the Mayor's other hand gripped her neck. His thumb, brute as a club, dug deeply into her throat, disabling her instantly.

She released the weapon and stabbed at his eyes again, this time feebly.

“You should not do that,” he said, voice husky with pain.

A guard dragged her off the bed and forced her facedown on the floor. For the first time since the attack on the camp, she had failed to work her will. She thought they would kill her right in front of the girls—give them a good lesson.
She
would have.

But the Mayor, breathing more evenly, prodded her with his big toe, his manner jokey, though his voice still sounded strained. “You look like the woman in the special pit, the one who tried to attack me. But she did not get so close.” His eyes drifted to the M–16,. “I thought you would do that. That is why I say to you, ‘Come to me.' ” Bliss didn't believe him.

He glanced at the other girls. “They are not killers, but you,” he squinted at her, “you are so young and you are a killer. Why is that so? What makes you want to kill a man so fine as me? Like mother like daughter?”

Bliss didn't answer. Guards rushed in and pushed aside the girls.

“It is okay,” the Mayor said to the reinforcements. “They are good girls. Only this one, she is a problem.” He nudged Bliss's back with the whole of his foot, and waved over a guard, whispering in the man's ear. The guard pulled a length of rope from his belt and tied Bliss's hands behind her back. Then he grabbed her hair and dragged her away.

“You two stay.” The Mayor pointed to the guards he wanted. “The rest, go.”

After they filed out, the Mayor studied the girls. “You are so sad. Are you worried about your friend? Do not worry about her. She could get you killed. You do not need her. Or maybe you are worried the big black man will pull down your pants and hurt you? Oh, yes, that is what you are thinking. I can tell. But this is not so. We are not like those crazy believers. We do not touch girls like you. We like you so much it makes us sad to sell you to those crazy white men because we know they will hurt you
.
It is a pity, but do not worry because we will see you again. Some of you, it is true, will die giving birth, but most of you will come back to us. That is right. We sell you, you have a baby, and then we take you back, like the girl with the dragon. She had a baby with the crazy men. But it did not live. So many babies die, too.”

He paused, suddenly cheery: “Yes, you will come back. But that is a year or two from now and you will be so much older and all used up, and we do not like you so much then. And to be the honest man I am, I have to tell you that you do not like us so much, either, because you blame us for sending you away. It is not a nice world for you then. But I will not tell you bad news now. Now is the time for joy.” He nodded at the guards. “Have them bring food and water for these fine girls. Something tasty. And bedding.”

He smiled at his prisoners again. “After you eat such good food, we will have to tie you up, but this is not so bad, and you can sleep by my side. I like such company, to hear you breathe and smell your sweet breath. Girls are so wonderful. You make me so happy.”

With alarming quickness, he turned to Ananda. “You are the sister and daughter of the ones who attacked me. You look just like them. Would
you
hurt me?”

Ananda stared without speaking. I'd kill you, she thought.

“Of course you would hurt me,” he said. “You would do whatever you could to save your sister and mother. That is only natural. I understand. So I am going to have to watch you most carefully. I will keep you and your special friend close by me tonight.”

Only then did Ananda realize she was holding M-girl's hand—and remembered her mother's warning that some men became agitated by seeing affection between women.

“No, I want you to come to me right now,” the Mayor said, as if admonishing Ananda. “Here.” He nodded regally to a spot in front of him.

“Don't do it,” M-girl whispered.

“I won't hurt you. Come here.”

“Don't.” M-girl pulled Ananda closer.

“You defy me?” the Mayor asked M-girl. “Then you come here. Bow to the Mayor.”

“They kiss,” Imagi shouted, glaring at Ananda and M-girl. “Kiss, kiss, kiss.”

“No!” Ananda snapped, staring back at Imagi.

M-girl wrenched herself away from Ananda and walked up to the Mayor, bowing.

“Why do you do this for your special friend? Why do you take her place? Because you love her?”

Don't say,
Ananda implored silently.

“Because you are the leader,” M-girl said.

“No, that is not why you do this,” the Mayor said. “You do this because you love her. I do not understand this. Why do you love a girl but not a boy?”

Imagi stirred. Ananda threw her a furious look.

“Boys do terrible things,” M-girl said evenly with her head still bowed.

The Mayor laughed. “This is so true, but girls kill with Wicca. Is this not so?”

“The girls get Wicca from men.”

Back off, Ananda thought. Or he'll kill you.

“The crazy believers give you Wicca,” the Mayor said. “We do not.”

“What do you do to us when we come back after having babies?” M-girl asked in the same neutral voice.

Ananda caught herself leaning forward for the Mayor's answer, but he clapped his hands and offered his biggest smile yet.

“Now is the time only for joy.”

C
assie heard the desert stir, a frightening rustle that rode the sand and drew closer every second.

Her instincts, honed by all the threats and terrors of her young life, turned the muzzle away from her chest and out into the darkness. She held the revolver with arms outstretched, just as Ananda had shown her when they used their hands for pistols and fired their fingers at imaginary killers.

What she feared now looked no more real than the savages she'd conjured with her friends. Only starlit-speckled darkness stared back at her. But the rustle grew louder and began to lose its softness. It sounded like metal. It sounded like machines. It sounded like man.

“Who are you?” she cried. “I've got a gun.”

She stabbed the darkness with the revolver, pointing left, right, center, but saw nothing. She turned around. Nothing. She wanted the moon, the pale glow that robbed the land of secrets, but the moon had disappeared days ago. With enormous dread—the dead weight of final fears—she accepted what was drawing nearer:
Ghosts!
She spoke only to herself, frightened of giving the phantoms even greater power if she were to say the word aloud. But the fear infected her panic till it was shouting inside her head:
Ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts! Coming to get
me.

She stared as hard as she could, trying to see them because if you looked really hard, you
could
see them. You could even feel them—if they passed through you. She shivered for the first time in many minutes, and her skin felt as clammy as it had since she pressed the gun to her chest.
Do it. Don't wait. Kill yourself.
For the first time acknowledging in the harshest terms what she had to do.

“Mom, Dad, Jenny, Maul,” she repeated softly. Gaining strength from the sound of their names, the memories of each.
They're waiting for me.

But before she could turn the gun back on herself, she worried the ghosts were waiting, too. What if they'd come whispering across the land to snare her at the moment of death, long before she could reach the stars? That's what ghosts did. They gathered their own and kept them. Forever.

The eerie noise grew louder. But ghosts didn't sound like machines or metal or anything made by man. She stared at the darkness so hard her eyes teared, as blinded by the night as they were by the glare of day. But movement snagged her attention, and she saw hunched figures darker than the desert spread out on the sand. They looked much larger than her. Maybe six of them.

Monsters?

She backed up, tripped, and fell on her bum. She struggled to stand and lost sight of them. She blinked hard and wiped her eyes.

“Don't come any closer.” But she was murmuring to herself, too scared to shout. She looked at the gun. Even after Maul's death, she could scarcely believe little bullets could kill such big beasts.