What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (38 page)

I see the wax-pale face, the tapered, form-hugging jacket, the sculpted hair whirled by the wind. I see her standing with legs slightly spread, arms at her sides. Waiting.

Finally waiting for me?

Is she tired of playing her game, going to give me my chance?

I kneel down and prop the rifle up with my elbow on my knee, squint through the site even though it’s too dark for it to be of use. The site helps me feel like I’m not about to waste my shot in the half-light, that I’m taking careful aim at her—at her chest, at her heart.

As I start to squeeze the trigger, I can’t help but think how I’m still only doing what she wants. I’m certain she’ll vanish before the bullet finds her. But she promised not just me but Aisa proof that she cannot die, that my measly, primitive weapon won’t destroy her.

The rifle kicks, its crack washed away by another blast of wind.

But there’s a scream this time. Shrill and human, like a scream from my own mouth—not the unearthly cry Jendra made before the bonfire. The scream cuts into me at a visceral, instinctive level rather than threatening to split my ears.

I see a shape, a human form drop to the ground from out of the shadow of the Yo-Yo’s top. But there is Moira, still standing, having taken only one single step aside. Whoever this fallen creature is, they’re still alive—I can see the body roll and writhe, arms flailing, clutching at its side. Moira shakes her head sadly just as she did after Needle’s disappointing performance in the square and backs away.

Who was it? Who did I shoot?

Was it Aisa—did Moira trick me into shooting Aisa? But whoever lies writhing on the ground, Moira kept them in check easily, without a struggle until the exact moment she was waiting for.

Not a Rider. Someone far weaker.

My hands are shaking. I get to my feet, fumble out another cartridge but drop it in the snow. I have to see what I’ve done. I hurry up to the body.

The closer I get, the harder it is to breathe. My stomach begins to knot.

It’s Emily.

Emily wounded. Thrashing on the ground.

There’s the straw-colored hair now tangled and wild, the face so familiar in the moonlight, twisted with pain. She’s still dressed in her fancy clothes, now smeared with snow, torn and bedraggled.

I drop to her side, trying to see clearly in the dim light, my own shadow obscuring her, feeling along her ribs, trying to keep her hands calm so I can touch the wound, pull back the flaps of her coat, get an idea of how badly she’s hurt.

I’ve hit her far right side, the edge of her torso. Blood is seeping up through her sweater, through her coat—there’s a smear of warm blood on my hand. I drop the rifle and slump to the ground beside her, huddle with her, cradle her in my arms.

“I’ll take this.”

A male voice behind me, deeper than Moira’s, decisive. I turn and two Riders loom over us—Moira with her dark lips and mirrored shades, Doon at her side. I push myself up and see the Riders stepping out of the darkness, from behind the odd shapes of the decaying rides and onto the midway. Doon has retaken the rifle.

“I think you’ve finally had your chance,” Moira says. “And look at this.” She points to Emily and wags her finger in my face. “You were a poor shot this time around. I’m very disappointed. I was hoping you’d kill her—I’d have loved to see how
that
made you feel.” She sighs. “But I guess there’s still a chance she could bleed to death.”

She points at the rifle, says to Doon, “Throw that thing in the river. We’re not playing with these toys anymore.”

Doon vanishes as if he was never there.
The rifle, my father’s rifle—gone forever.

Moira stands directly in front of me now. I have my knees in the snow, bent low over Emily, my hands pressing gently on her hands as she continues to clutch at her wound as if trying to staunch the flow of blood.

My shot, my one clear shot and it was to see if I could kill—

Emily. Why Emily? Because Moira is clever—knew the worst possible thing she could do to me. But how does this prove that she can defeat death?

I look up past where the tails of Moira’s coat are snapping around the tops of her leather boots, up to her arrogant smile, watch as she pulls back her sleeve once more and displays to me her wrist. A wrist with a set of indigo indentations sunk deep into her blue-white skin that retain the pattern of my teeth. “Payback time, Gilly.”

I hadn’t noticed her hands before but they are uncovered, exposed. I can see the lavender half-moons of her fingernails, longer, sharper than Needle’s. She takes a pair of black kid gloves from her pocket, draws them on slowly just as Aisa had done in Needle’s room. It’s theater, drama—another part of the performance. We’re still not at the end of the show.

Without warning, she snatches her arm back and slaps my face, hard. I might have had a chance to put my hands up, to try to deflect the blow but Emily’s clutching fingers are laced through mine and I can’t pull away. I let Moira hit me as hard as she can—as hard as she wants to—sending me sprawling back onto the snow, punching through its frozen surface.

She’s staring at me, clenching her black-gloved fists. My mouth stings at first but has no feeling when I touch it—moving a finger across my cheek, my lower lip—and my hand comes away stained with my own blood this time, my blood mixed with Emily’s.

The slap is an invitation to fight. Moira and me. No weapons allowed—no time to prepare. Nothing to give me an advantage.

I can feel the other Riders pressing in close again. I don’t even have to look to know how close they are. I can smell them even with the wind grinding into my face, can feel their presence setting my nerves on fire like a thousand small needles are pricking at every inch of my skin.

This time she
will
kill me. Nothing can stop her.

But I can’t give up.

And I won’t leave Emily.

I get on my hands and knees, hands instantly numbed by the snow. I crawl back to Emily and feel for her wound again, the slick spot on her side. I carve out a handful of snow and press it against the spot, trying to hold Emily’s squirming hands back. Maybe the snow will dull the pain. Maybe the bleeding will stop.

But Moira gives me a sharp kick in the ribs. Knocks me back on the ground, sprawled away from Emily. Before I can move the tip of her boot is under my chin.

“You will fight, warrior girl. On your feet now—you have no choice.” She is hissing, snarling, a feral cat with a lust to taunt, to destroy. “You should feel honored that I’m giving you a chance to go out in style.”

She draws the tip of her boot away, waits for me to try to get up.

“Surely
you
, Gillian Rose, are not going to roll over and simply die. You think you’re something special—the one Elder who has ever, ever thought they could take us on. I want to see how special you really are.”

She kicks me again, not as hard. Not wanting to hurt me badly. She wants me on my feet before she delivers the fatal blow. “Come on now. I’m tired of waiting.”

I’m back on my hands and knees. I sit up, one knee raised, the palms of my frozen hands flat against the snow. Before making another move, I start to speak, try to raise my voice high enough so all of them surrounding me can hear.

“You can’t just kill me, can you Moira?” My voice cracks, struggles against the wind. “That wouldn’t look good in front of your tribe. I have to fight like a worthy opponent. It can’t look like you’re just picking on weaklings. Like William and Emily.”

Moira laughs, a rich reverberating laugh that fills the midway. “Mind games, Gillian. You’re trying to undermine my authority. Very clever.” She reaches down, grabs the front of my parka and hauls me to my feet.
“But—you—will—do—what—I—say.”

Her voice is brimming with hate, with a howling rage louder than the wind. Each syllable strikes deep in my ears like a shaft of pure electric current. I look into her face—charcoal eyebrows painted into peaks above hidden eyes. Alabaster skin, mouth scrunched tight like a plum-purple scar. A sharp nose, high cheekbones—bones that are regal and austere.

Her breath is an icy chill in my face, filling my nose with that coppery, sweetly putrid smell. With her flesh so close to mine, I start to gag, it gets hard to breathe. I reach up and grab her wrists, gripping her by her coat sleeves. I want to spit in her face but my mouth is dry. I struggle to turn from her, shove her back, put distance between us.

She lets go of my parka and slams back my arms.
“You—do—not—touch—me.”
Her voice is a shriek so deafening the last word climbs past the range of my hearing. My ears are hollowed out, ringing.

Moira pushes into me with incredible force and I fly back, finding myself splayed out on the ground again, stunned. But I shake my head to clear it, search desperately for a second wind.

If I can get away, I’m the one the Riders will follow. Emily might have time to escape if she’s able to stand, able to move.

I roll over, scramble onto my hands and knees, this time refuse to waste a second but lift up like a sprinter at the start of a race with my butt in the air. I push off with all the strength in my thighs I can muster, take off running back down the open midway.

Running without traction in the snow. Running against the wind, trying to suck enough air into my constricted chest to keep going.

I hear breezy laughter behind me. Someone says, unconcerned, “It’s only fair that she gets a head start.”

I’m amazed I’m able to run. Where is this energy coming from? Maybe it’s a last burst before the end—a final surge of power before I collapse into a crumpled heap.

I curse the snow that slows me, boots sinking into the softness below the crust. Past the fun house and the haunted house the midway forks left to rows of food carts and trailers but when I try to heave myself in that direction I slip, nearly fall but manage to shove myself up with the palm of my right hand, the hand that was torn by glass. It stings but the pain adds to the sudden surge of strength I feel, keeps me going—

—going to a spot where the chain link fence has been beaten down—a gap, another opening. If I reach it, maybe I can work my way through the tangle of vines, back to the street beyond—or circle back to Emily.

But like the monsters that once jumped from the shadows in the haunted house, Riders leap into view from behind the carts and the trailers, fan out across the open ground. I spin in the other direction, retreat, stumble and nearly fall once more but make it back toward the gaming booths, the place where I came in.

Here, too, from behind the counters where carnies once stood, Riders pop up inside the booths just as I imagined they would when I passed this way the first time—perfect targets now, if I only had the rifle. They point and laugh and cheer as they watch me struggle.

I’m really stumbling now, my legs not working like they were just seconds before, the soft snow below the crust pulling at me like small puddles of quicksand. When I’m almost back to the big rides, I can’t see any moonlit figures ahead of me except for a small shape on the ground—Emily, lying where I left her. Running away, trying to get the Riders to follow me, isn’t helping her escape. She’s too hurt to move.

I look from one side of the midway to the other, from the Ferris wheel to the Octopus and beyond but still see no Riders. I have the wild hope that maybe they’re all behind me now, that there’s a sliver of a chance I can grab Emily and make it out the other way, past the last of these big rides, out the other end of the park.

Sure.
Grab Emily—throw her over your shoulder, carry her in your arms. You’re fooling yourself.

But I can’t leave her.

Run, just run. Do what you can before it’s too late.

Just as I’m almost past the saucer shape of the Gravitron—close, very close to Emily now—an ear-splitting squeal of metal grinding against metal makes me instinctively hunker down like a bomb’s just gone off. I look all around, thinking it must have been a ferocious blast of wind but then see the saucer actually begin to spin—spin very slowly and for only a few feet like the last clicks of an enormous roulette wheel.

For a moment I expect lights to snap on, carnival music to play. Imagine the Riders have a generator powerful enough to make everything in the carnival work, bring this spectral park back to life. But nothing happens—only the wind continues to shriek and moan.

I’m wasting precious seconds, stopped in my tracks, unsure what to do, when the door of the saucer flops open, clanging with a wallop against the base of the ride. There’s now a slender gap, a dark tunnel that leads to ride’s interior. Under the pale light of the moon, it looks as murky and fathomless as the bottom of a deep well.

Is this another invitation, like the flash of light showing the way into the tangle of vines?
Moira—waiting for me inside.
She will have to force me to do what she wants this time, drag me into that thing. As I stare at it, the Gravitron reminds me of a saucer-shaped tomb.

There’s laughter in dark recesses around the midway, laugher blown to me by the wind. I realize I haven’t outrun the Riders, merely moved on to another part of their playground.

There is a tap on my shoulder. I spin around, see only a thin black shade slip behind the rim of the Matterhorn. I turn back and there she is. About two yards away. Nearly close enough to touch, to scuffle with.

And then I hear them all, see them—in an instant the Riders pressing in again but giving Moira and me space. This is still between her and me. They start clapping, hooting, roaring like sports fans at a game.

I’m surrounded and realize my only choice is to charge at her, hurl myself at her, wanting to knock her down, get the upper hand if only for a moment. Buy myself a few more precious seconds.

But without seeming to move her feet, she shifts. She shifts just far enough to the side that I run right past, have a hard time stopping myself without tumbling over. I look around, at the rides and the fence beyond, back down to the far end of the midway.