Orleans (30 page)

He shake his head in disbelief. “Well, thank you for the warning. We’d best not tarry. Give me the child, and you can be on your way.”

“She ain’t mine to give,” I tell him true. “I made a promise to Lydia and I’ma keep it. You want blood? It gotta come from you or me, but not her.”

Davis raise an eyebrow, reading my face. He see I mean it. “Very well. Will you let us move her to safety?”

“Say it first,” I tell him. “You accept blood payment from Fen de la Guerre. Say it.”

“I accept your payment, Fen,” he say, and I know he live by that. Every tribe got its own way of dealing with things, but one thing for sure, in front of all his people, Davis got to keep his word or he ain’t worth the clothes he standing in.

I unstrap Enola and one of them basket-weaving women come forward and take her. Baby Girl start fussing, but that can’t be helped. The first rule of escape be assess your situation. Baby Girl and I gotta get out of this camp, and soon. The only way be through Davis. I got a baby, I got a plan, and I got a knife. It’ll have to do. I crouch down and pull the blade from my boot.

36

DAVIS LOOK LIKE A PEACOCK, STRUTTING
around me. He got his own blade, and it a good size, but ceremonial, like his clothes and everything else—bits of feathers and beads, mess that just get in the way. Maybe it ain’t never come down to it for Davis. Maybe the first time be at the powwow when he come out of hiding long enough to see his own folks get cut and bleed. Seems to me this blood fight he wanting be mostly for show, and from the way his O-Negs be cheering him on, they think it for show, too.

But it ain’t. I watch the way I step, keeping low enough to stay balanced if he come at me. The ground ain’t too even here by the stream, and it soft in places. I forget that and I might stumble. Davis, on the other hand, know the shift of the soil here. He be standing up tall like you win a fight by being of a size, not a mind.

I be of a mind. Let him showboat if he got to. But I ain’t got all day. Them ABs be coming, and if Enola and I ain’t gone by the time they get here, then it all been for nothing. So I got to find a way to force his hand. I stop circling. Davis stop a second later, but he closer to me than he been and it make him nervous. He hefting the knife in his right hand, blade up, looking to stab at me. Stabs be killing blows. Me, I just got to make a point.

I hold my knife blade down, ready to slash, and rush him. Davis suddenly drop to a crouch and thrust his knife at me. I sidestep and hook my left arm around his knife arm, hold it tight to my side. With my own knife, I cut off one of his braids. I push through and hope he trip on the uneven ground.

He don’t go down, but I do, ’cause somehow he use my hold to throw me past him. I tuck and roll, keeping my knife out and away from my body. When I come up, knife ready, eyes back on Davis, I be almost up against the watching crowd. They know they place, though, and leave me be.

“This is a blood price, Fen,” Davis say, reaching up to feel where his lock used to be.

“For you, Brother Davis. I ain’t asking nothing from you but to let me be on my way with that baby. I cut you now, them ABs be on us all the faster. You ready for that?”

“Are you?”

He come at me so fast, I ain’t got time to do more than bend to the side, arms out for balance. I feel his blade, but it cut my arm, my scar tissue, and that don’t bleed so easy. Davis turn on me, angry to see his blade ain’t running red. So maybe this ain’t a game for him after all.

He rush me, and this time, our blades connect. I block him, knife against knife, stepping into the blow. If I jump back, he gonna stab me. If I step in, he gotta change the way he holding the knife, or give ground. He gives and I slice him, whirling away. Blood come pouring down the cut on his cheek, pouring down good. He don’t cry out, but he wipe his face, smearing it.

“Enough?” I ask.

Davis’s blood look like war paint on his face, like them folks on All Saints’ Day, decked out for they krewes. He growl at me, “No. This is for Natasha.”

He rush me again. This time, I step forward, past his blade, and hit him in the chin with the top of my head. It don’t pay to be standing so tall after all. His jaw snap shut and his head fly back. He stagger away from me, but I don’t let him get far. I drive my knife into his right shoulder and jump into his body, kneeing his gut.

Davis grunt and hit the ground. His knife go flying across the clearing. My own knife done cut through his vest. It tough leather, made from deer or boar hide, but there be blood darkening the entry hole. I hold my blade against him and lean in close. Around us, his people be muttering and shouting. They ain’t happy. “Davis,” I say. “I ain’t looking to kill another O-blood today. Flip me. Take my knife, and I’ll call mercy.”

“No,” Davis say, gritting his teeth. “Natasha—”

“Natasha weren’t no fool. She’d know these folks need a leader. That gonna be you or no? War coming whether you like it or not. If I call mercy, you let me and the baby go. I’ma get her out of this city. I promised Lydia. I’ma do that. After that . . . you and me can settle up. Whenever and however you want. But we both got to live to do it.”

Davis look at me with them gray-green eyes I used to think be so beautiful. He don’t nod, but I feel his body shift beneath me and I let it. He toss me over and onto my back. I release my grip and he take my knife, pressing it to my throat. Around us, the O-Negs roar in triumph.

“And this is how the price is paid!” he say, loud enough for everyone to hear.
I lower my eyes. “Mercy,” I say. It don’t come out half as loud as his words, but it don’t come easy to me, even in a play. Instead, I start to shake, try to say it again. “I yield,” I say so soft it be a whisper. Davis sneer at me.

“Your blood won’t do,” he say to the crowd, to me. “It’s too thin. Natasha had the blood of a warrior,” he roars. I want to laugh in his face. That woman had the hands of a baby and the eyes of a fox. Sly and cold. He right. We ain’t the same quality stock at all.

He get up off me a minute later and wipe his blood off my knife. He throw it over the heads of the crowd, into the woods.

“Bring the child,” he call to the basket weaver. He take the baby from her. Davis bounce Enola in his arms for half a second. “Leave us,” he say. “Your blood would weaken our tribe. This child would weaken our tribe. Do not return.”

I take Enola and wrap her sling around her like a blanket. I look Davis in the eye and wonder who Enola’s daddy really be. Got to be an OP or an O-Neg, and I know it ain’t one of our boys, or old Uncle Rom. I hope it ain’t Davis. But anything possible.

The crowd part and I walk into the woods where he threw my blade. I find my knife in the dirt and rub it clean on some leaves to get rid of the last of Davis’s scent.

Ain’t much later when I hear a howl split the air. Blood hounds or bloodthirsty ABs, it don’t make a difference. With all them O-Negs close by, they won’t be looking for me right away. Even so, I start to run.

37

THE AIR GREW MORE HUMID AS NIGHT CAME
on. Daniel felt exposed on the flat expanse of grass. Rooftops at night was even more frightening than during the day. He should have waited, he knew, waited until morning. He should have listened to Mr. Go and not come at all. They had stayed up for hours, going over Daniel’s formulas, swapping theories, but made little progress. The tools Daniel had used to make the DF virus didn’t exist in Orleans, just as the samples available in the Delta could not be found in the Outer States. Without the missing vials, they might hit on a cure eventually. But it would take years. Time that Fen’s city did not have.

And so he’d had Mr. Go draw a second map, one that would allow him to retrace his steps. The map had done its part. The rest was up to Daniel.

He looked out across the gently rolling landscape. It was insanity to walk the hazards of this field in the dark, let alone attempt to go spelunking, even with his night-vision goggles. They’d be next to useless, but time was running out. Gingerly, he edged from the trees and onto the soft earth.

Fen. She kept popping into his head, unbidden. Fen. Enola. The reasons he was back here. What was it Fen and Mr. Go had both said? Daniel in the lions’ den. They couldn’t have been more right. He took another step onto the damp earth.

A high-pitched scream filled the air. Daniel dropped to his stomach like a frightened mouse, freezing in terror. The cry came again, like the hunting call of an owl, and he recognized it as human. His encounter suit reacted as he broke into a fear-induced sweat, his heart pounding faster. The war that Fen feared was already beginning. Now that he was still, Daniel could hear other bodies in the field, moving silently except for the susurration of grass as they passed.

Daniel withdrew into the tree line and dialed his goggles up higher. When he rose to his knees, he could see the hunting party. Fearlessly, they were dancing across Rooftops, whooping occasionally. Daniel recalled what Fen had said about the man named La Bête Sauvage, how he drugged his hunters to make them brave.
Or suicidal,
Daniel thought. But the grass beneath them did not give way. Like a joke in a child’s cartoon, unaware of the danger, they defied gravity. Across their backs were slung bows and bigger weapons: the guns that Fen said were on their way.

Daniel pressed his back to a rough tree trunk and tried to think. He was so close, but where there was one group of ABs, there might be more. Daniel’s heart sank. He couldn’t risk them finding the virus. If he managed to find it and they caught him . . . In the wrong hands, the virus would devastate Orleans, sweeping across the Delta like an avenging angel.

Again he thought of Charlie. Happy-go-lucky Charlie, scrabbling to eat the dirt from his potted plant. Even at his worst, with gums bleeding and teeth ground down to nubs, Daniel never once thought of euthanizing his little brother. Charlie had been alive, like Orleans. And that was the first, most important thing.

Daniel stared out across the field, alive now with hoots and burning lights. The DF virus was almost a cure, but almost was not enough. Mr. Go was right. Better to leave it buried and escape the city. Better to live and start again.

Torchlight moved toward him like a will-o’-the-wisp, driving him to hide in the scrub brush beneath the trees. He looked again at Mr. Go’s map, at the directions that would lead him to a breach in the Wall. He was less than a mile away from the area Mr. Go described on the map, but the war for Orleans had started, and the streets were filling with tribes. His only hope was to hide.

Daniel’s heart pounded in his chest. Panic fluttered inside him and he saw Charlie’s face again. Charlie when he was healthy and strong. Enola’s little face, so delicate and tender. Fen scowling, smirking at him.

What was it Fen had said? Churches are sacred. They are sanctuary.

Daniel looked at his map. Father John’s church was just west of him, and slightly north. Closer than the Wall. The church would have to do for now.

38

THE SUN LOOK LIKE A DYING CANDLE ON THE
western edge of the treetops. My eyes be adjusting to the dark as I walk. Leaves and pine needles crunch beneath my feet. Father John’s mission ain’t far from here, and it won’t be in danger of the ABs, the Os, or nobody. He ain’t like Mama Gentille. Father John’s church still be sacred ground. Like the Ursuline Sisters with they schooling and praying, Father John put his faith to work. When he come down with his missionaries and open up the old Super Saver food store as his church, people start to come. There been food and water there when the Red Cross and the feds weren’t nowhere to be found. He brought in clothes, shoes, medicines for tribe and freesteader alike.