Dark Company (23 page)

She glared at him. “So he can end up like me? I don’t want him to evolve. I want him to stay the way he is.”

“It isn’t right to interfere with another soul’s journey!” Sebastian blustered, taking sides.

“You don’t mean what you’re saying,” Kenji said.

Skylark scoffed. She didn’t need his sanctimonious advice. “I mean exactly what I’m saying. Stay away from me, Kenji, or you’ll regret it.”

He wouldn’t stop. “You’re being selfish, Skylark. Think about what you’re doing. It’s wrong and you know it.” He reached for her arm. She ended the conversation by jumping in a burst of light and thumping down beside Francis in the practice field. Her robe furled around her. She hated that she reverted whenever she jumped by herself. She angrily popped back into human form.

“What took you so long?” Francis said. “I thought you got lost.”

“Ask Kenji.”

Kenji showed up an instant later, glasses and cool demeanour in place. Francis gave him a look, tugging at his beard. Whatever question he was formulating he dropped and got back to business. “Okay. Let’s get to it.” He jerked his head toward a new target standing next to the scorched crater where the old one had been.

Skylark drew an arrow from the quiver. It hummed and flickered in her hand. Fitting the arrow’s notch against the string, she pulled back, channelling her anger at the target. Francis nodded and she released. The arrow shrieked as it flew, ripping through the bull’s-eye and driving into the blackened trunk of one of the
scorched trees, its fletching shaking like a feather duster. Skylark’s soul surged. She turned to Francis victoriously.

Francis and Kenji stared at the impaled tree. The old man cleared his throat.

“That was good.”

“Beginner’s luck,” Kenji said.

Skylark sneered. “Of course, you would know.”

“Now, now,” the mouse soothed.

“Can you do that again?” Francis asked. “Only this time, ease back on the throttle.”

Skylark drew another arrow from the quiver, secured the notch, pulled the bowstring and released. The arrow sang, hitting the target square in the eye with a satisfying thwack. She gave Kenji a self-satisfied look.

Francis beamed at her. “You’re born to it.”

“It was my idea,” Kenji said.

“Oh, you’re full of good ideas,” Skylark snapped.

Francis pushed back his hat. “Go ahead, hotshot, take credit. It was Skylark who pulled the trigger. The girl’s got innate skills.”

“Or was it the bow?” Kenji said. “The real test is whether she can keep her head and not do anything stupid under pressure.” He folded his arms. “Firing at targets is one thing. Shooting at demons—that’s a different story altogether.”

“Bring it on,” Skylark challenged him. “Silver and I are ready.”

“Ah, it’ll come with practice,” Francis said.

“Yes,” Sebastian chimed in. “Practice makes perfect.”

Skylark narrowed her eyes at Kenji. “I’m happy to practise.” She lined up and fired, the arrow streaking through the air and lopping off the top of the only tree behind the target that hadn’t been torched. She frowned.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Francis said. “He’s just jealous.”

“Am I?” Kenji stared smugly back, then jumped, leaving Francis and Skylark alone in the field.

“Good,” Skylark said. “I thought he’d never go.”

Francis grunted. “Who put a bee in his bonnet?”

“I thought she was doing fine,” Sebastian said.

“Sore loser,” Francis muttered. “Shall we continue?”

P
oe washed his hands in the river, the blood streaming from his fingers in loose red ribbons. He pulled off his shirt, plunged it into the water and scrubbed. Caddy sat on a stone, watching.

“How did you get separated from the group?” she asked.

He wrung the water from his shirt and examined it. The blood was stubborn, staining the fabric with pink splotches. He dunked the shirt back in the water and scoured it against a rock. “I ran in the opposite direction to make the Company men chase me. There were a lot of them and they split up. I doubled back to find the others and they tracked me. I hid and waited for an opportunity. Then you found me.”

And here we are, Caddy thought, searching for a way to begin the conversation neither of us wants to have. “That man … you killed him …”

Poe clenched his jaw. “Yes.”

“But the covenant …”

“Thou shalt not kill—you think I don’t know that? I wasn’t expecting you to show up, Cadence. I thought I was on my own. It came down to you or him. Which would you have preferred?”

It was her fault. He was right. If she’d listened to the other Dreamers, Poe wouldn’t have blood on his hands. “I couldn’t just leave you.”

“I would have been okay. You have to start thinking about your own safety. Things are worse than ever.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve never used dogs before. Something has changed. They’re more aggressive. The attack today … it was a full-scale assault.”

Caddy felt a twinge in her fingertips. The bad feeling was near. Please, not now, she silently begged. “Do you think they’re still out there?”

“If they were, we’d have seen them by now.” He inspected his shirt and kept scrubbing. “You can’t put yourself at risk for me, Cadence. It’s not good for you—or the group.”

The group. How could she tell him what she really felt? The group scared her, almost as much as the Company men. “What’s going to happen to you—with the group.”

“I’ll be punished.”

Her jaw dropped. “Punished?”

“The sin of the one is the sin of the many.”

“Those are just words.”

“Not to us.”

“What does being ‘punished’ even mean? What will they do to you?”

“I don’t know. There will be a judgment. This is a very serious offence.”

“I’m the one to blame,” Caddy said. “I should have never come after you. Surely they’ll understand the circumstances.”

Poe shrugged. “I knew the rules and I broke them.”

He was being so pragmatic. The whole thing was absurd. “Is that you talking … or Hex?”

He stopped scrubbing and stared into the water. “Hex is only doing what she has to.”

“And punishing you is part of that?”

“Yes, if need be. The Dreamers are on a set course. We’ve been following this trajectory for centuries.”

“Things have changed—you said so yourself. The Company men are using dogs now. It won’t be long before they kill us all. Then where will we be?”

“We have to follow the directive.” He wrung out his shirt and pulled it on, faint pink blossoms marring the fabric.

Caddy stood. “Something is really wrong with this, Poe. What good does it do to punish you? You did what you thought you had to. We can’t all run like scared rabbits and hope the dreaming will change things.”

Poe faced her, his eyes as dark and deep as oceans. “Our dreams are powerful, Cadence. Don’t ever doubt that.”

The mark on her arm began to ache. It filled her with disgust. “I don’t doubt it. But I do doubt Hex—and the wisdom of anyone who blindly follows her.” She thought this would make him angry. He just smiled.

“The Dreamers’ eyes are open, Cadence. When you look with your heart, you see clearly, and there is no room for doubt.”

More rhetoric. She didn’t want to hear it. “I wish I shared your conviction.”

Poe moved closer. She could feel the heat off his body.

“I can’t let anything happen to you, Cadence. I couldn’t forgive myself if I did. I’ll take whatever punishment I have coming to me.”

She searched his face, and at last she understood. “I’m not Meg, Poe. Killing a hundred Company men won’t bring her back.”

He lowered his head, hands clenched, and for the first time she appreciated how truly vulnerable he was. In the years she’d known him at school he’d seemed so aloof, so immune to everyone and everything. Now here he was, standing in front her with his heart exposed. His wet shirt clung to his skin, accentuating
his broad shoulders and the chiselled muscles of his stomach and chest. He was strong—strong enough to kill a man. He couldn’t save Meg. But he could save
her
. And he was willing to, no matter what the cost. This realization stirred something in her heart. She reached for his hand.

“Poe …”

He pulled away. “We should find the others.”

Caddy followed him, wanting to continue their conversation. The moment was lost, so she spoke around it. “The knife the Company man carried … it was strange.”

He walked in silence, and she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he spoke as though nothing had changed. “It’s called a punyal. It’s a type of dagger.”

He’d gotten his edge back. This was the Poe she knew from school. Caddy skirted around some tree roots.

“It looked old.”

“It is. The Company men come from a very old order—as old as recorded time. They have their traditions, one of which is to pass weapons from man to man. We’ve seen them with everything—scimitars, bayonets, Second World War trench knives—even blades of fractured obsidian.”

“Obsidian … that’s a type of stone, right?”

“Volcanic glass,” he corrected her.

They cleared the hill, moving toward the jagged mouth of the rock where she’d hid with April.

“And the Dreamers?” she asked. “Are they as old?”

“Yes. As long as there have been those who embrace the Dark, there have been those who anchor the Light.” He pointed to a clump of cedars. “Is that where you and April called the Dreamers?”

“Yes.”

They pushed into the stand of trees and he took her hands. His energy flowed through her like a current. It made her feel
light-headed. “Poe,” she said, trying to bridge the distance between them. “I won’t tell the others about the Company man.”

“I’m sure they already know.” He closed his eyes. “Concentrate on the mark.”

After everything that had happened, after all her misgivings about Hex and the judgment Poe said she would enforce, Caddy didn’t think she could summon the mark. Yet it appeared as readily as before, sparkling in her mind. She traced its pathway, and the faces of the Dreamers emerged. When she opened her eyes Poe was looking back at her.

“You saw them,” he said.

“Yes. I know which way to go.”

“We have to hurry. Using the mark leaves us exposed.”

Caddy’s connection to the Dreamers was palpable. It drew her toward them by an invisible cord, growing stronger with every footstep. Eventually, she found them, standing in a group among the trees.

April’s face brightened when she saw Poe. “We waited when we felt the mark,” she said. She squeezed Caddy’s hand and whispered, “I’m so glad you found him.”

The Dreamers set out through the woods, the sun casting long shadows behind them. At a cluster of sheltered stones, they stopped and took their places for the night, hunkering in small groups between the rocks. A man and a woman kept watch. There would be no fire.

To Caddy’s relief, Poe stayed close, curling next to her. April did too, taking a place next to Poe. Caddy secretly hoped April didn’t like him too much. This thought made her feel selfish and she pushed it away. She drew her hands into the sleeves of her jacket. The ground was cold. There were things crawling beneath her. She was hungry. It was the first time she’d thought about food in hours. She checked her pocket for the bread she’d stashed from the cabin. It was a soggy mess from her swim across the
river. She tossed it and settled in. Her hands started to shake, and the smell of burnt toast filled her nostrils. She moaned.

Poe put his arm around her as the bad feeling took her under. She tumbled alone into the Emptiness, Poe’s voice calling her from somewhere far away, telling her everything would be all right.

When she returned, shivering and dazed, Poe was still holding her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded. If only she could stop shaking. He held her close, the warmth of his body a comfort against the cold.

“Sleep,” he said. “You’re safe now. I’ll watch over you.”

At dawn, Caddy woke to someone jiggling her shoulder. It was Poe, red rimmed with exhaustion. Had he slept at all?

“It’s time to go.”

Caddy pushed the hair from her eyes. “You should have woken me earlier.”

“I thought you could use the rest.” He gestured at some bushes. “If you need to go, you should do it now.”

Caddy squatted half asleep behind the bushes before joining Poe and April with the others.

“Do we know where we’re going?” she asked.

“No.”

For hours, the Dreamers walked, stopping only when they reached a gravel road that cut a parched swath through the trees. They hid in the underbrush, mosquitoes swarming, relentless. Caddy retreated like a turtle inside her jean jacket. The sun pressed against her back. She was dirty and hungrier than ever. They all were. Poe kneeled next to her, watching. April looked tired and nervous.

After a while, an engine could be heard grinding down the road. A yellow school bus rounded the corner, dragging a small
tornado of dust behind it. One of the Dreamers waved, signalling the driver. The bus slowed and stopped, and the door flapped open. The Dreamers boarded, weary and wordless. Caddy stayed close to Poe, taking a seat at the back by a window. April shadowed her, sitting on the other side of Poe. When everyone was on, the driver closed the door and shifted into gear. A woman took charge, handing out glass mason jars of water and knots of white bread from a cloth sack.