She didn’t know enough about any of them to have a real way to gauge their characters, but she instinctively trusted both Kitty and Francis. Hector and Melody made her uneasy, and the jury was still out on Jack and Edgar. Even if she didn’t trust them, though, it wasn’t like she had a list of other options. She’d woken up in a strange world with nothing but the clothes she’d been wearing. She had no skills she knew of so far that were marketable—other than being a fair shot. A degree in sociology, a hodgepodge of menial jobs, and knowledge of book and television trivia weren’t much of a résumé here from what she could see. Hell, she wasn’t even sure the locals needed résumés. So far, she’d only seen bloedzuigers, cynanthropes, and a dead monk. None of that predisposed her to thinking there were a whole lot of golden opportunities on her horizon if she left the group who’d found her in the desert.
Hector and Melody were talking in low tones beside the corpse. Jack, Kitty, and Edgar were scanning the area. They all looked like they were hyperalert, either because of the Verrot or the situation—or most likely both.
A few of the locals who were out of doors gave the group a wide berth, but no one seemed to be particularly alarmed by them—or by the corpse now bleeding on the red reeds on the street. Maybe death in the streets of Gallows wasn’t all that unusual, or maybe the Arrivals weren’t the only ones who had issues with demon-summoning monks. Chloe wasn’t sure. What she did take comfort in, however, was the way the group was regarded. The local people—who looked mostly or entirely human in several cases—didn’t look at them like they were villainous. A number of the Wastelanders were all looking in the same direction, though, and it wasn’t at them. Chloe followed their gazes to see a pale blue mass about eye level, but at some distance away.
“Hey, Francis, what’s that?” She pointed.
He glanced in the direction she’d pointed and called out, “Blight.”
The mass was getting closer, and as it did, Chloe realized that it was a swarm of tiny pale blue insects winging their way. They were so close together that as they’d flown they’d given the illusion of a larger solid object. She’d think the insects were a beautiful surprise, except for the fact that the few Wastelanders in the street rushed indoors en masse. Doors slammed. Shutters were yanked closed.
“So . . . not good?” she asked.
“Not for natives,” Francis replied. “We’re mostly safe, though.”
Mostly wasn’t particularly comforting, but the rest of the group didn’t look too alarmed. Kitty frowned, and Melody lifted her shotgun again. She cracked the barrel and slid in two shells, although Chloe thought that using a shotgun against bugs seemed a bit like overkill.
“Do they sting? Bite? What?”
“Stay behind me, and get moving,” Francis answered.
A man stumbled out of a narrow lane between two taller buildings, and the swarm surged toward him. As their group backed away, Chloe found that she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight of these delicate, winged things covering the man so completely that he was soon a whirring blur of soft blue. Instead of the scream she expected, she heard manic laughter.
“Come on.” Jack had her arm and was pulling her toward a door. He pounded on it with a fist and called, “Let a few of us in, or no one will tend to the swarm.”
A few moments passed before the door opened, and Jack pushed her into a tiny shop. A quick look at the shelves revealed that it was a fabric store or possibly a tailor’s shop. Kitty, Edgar, and Hector came inside too. Francis, apparently, was still outside with Melody.
“Stay in here.” Jack looked at his sister as he said this, and then at Edgar, who nodded once in assent.
“This will work better than yours.” Kitty held out a long-barreled gun, not quite a shotgun but longer than any pistol Chloe had ever seen before arriving in the Wasteland.
“Thanks.” Jack took it and pulled open the door to leave. As he did so, at least a dozen of the winged things rushed inside the shop and separated, flitting around the shop in a chaotic pattern as if the bright colors of the fabrics were confusing to them.
He shoved the door closed again, not latched but closed enough that no more insects could slip inside the building.
The very tall woman Chloe assumed was the proprietress and the four other people inside all let out sounds of distress and scurried around in a chaos as frenetic as the insects’. Chloe wasn’t sure if they were seeking weapons or shelter or both.
“Go,” Kitty ordered her brother. “We’ve got these.”
Jack nodded, yanked the door open, and hurriedly left.
A couple more insects flew inside.
The Wastelanders were now scrambling to unfurl swaths of fabric. They tugged down bolts of cloth in their panic. One woman had the presence of mind to help another, and together they draped a patterned, heavy fabric over themselves and dropped to the floor. A squat man crawled under a display after yanking the bolts out and tossing them aside.
Hector threw one of his knives at an insect that had touched down atop a bundle of bright pink cloth, killing it neatly. As Edgar walked to the back of the shop, he plucked the knife out and tossed it back to Hector. At almost the same time, Edgar swatted a bug out of the air with the barrel of his gun and then promptly squashed it with his boot. It was the most peculiar use of a gun that Chloe had ever seen.
Kitty and Hector moved so they were on either side of Chloe in opposite corners. Both had knives drawn. Neither looked at her, but Hector instructed, “They won’t kill us, but they sting like nothing you’ve ever felt at home.”
“And make you insensible,” Kitty added.
“Great.” Chloe looked around for a weapon. Spying a shovel that looked like it was used for scooping ash from the currently unlit fireplace, she snatched it and held it like a baseball bat. She might not be able to hit an insect with a gun barrel, but she could hit one with a shovel.
As she watched for insects, she asked, “Why are the Wastelanders hiding if the Blight isn’t fatal?”
“The Stinging Blight can be fatal for us,” replied one of the two women under the patterned fabric.
“Or cause madness,” added another fabric-covered Wastelander.
“She’s never seen the Blight. New to the desert,” Kitty said.
Chloe wasn’t sure why Kitty was implying that she wasn’t new to the whole Wasteland, but she wasn’t going to ask here and now. She stared around the shop. Hector nailed another insect. Edgar and Kitty had both thrown knives, and he’d already retrieved her knife and thrown it back to her. Chloe was starting to feel like she was of no use when an insect flew toward Kitty. It was directly in front of her, and she’d already launched both of her knives.
“Kit!” Edgar had lifted his knife but couldn’t throw it without hitting her too.
Chloe stretched to the left and thwacked the insect with her shovel, hitting it in a downward motion and then stomping on it. The movement felt a little like a cross between volleyball and baseball.
“Thank you,” Kitty said as she went forward to grab her knives.
They found a sort of rhythm after that. Chloe got the ones they couldn’t kill with knives—those that were too close to the bystanders under their cloth shelters or too close to the Arrivals.
Finally, Hector announced, “There’s only one left.”
“You counted?” Kitty leaned against the wall, knife held idly in her hand.
He tossed one of his knives up like he was juggling a ball not a weapon. He caught the knife before answering, “Of course.”
They continued to watch, but after several more minutes, the people under their cloth shelters came out, and Edgar returned to the front of the shop to stand between Kitty and the door. Chloe hopped up on the front counter with her shovel at the ready.
The missing insect didn’t appear.
When Jack pounded on the door again, Kitty was the one to open it. Chloe didn’t miss the way her eyes tracked over him. Kitty might grumble about her brother, but she
was inspecting him the way a worried mother examines her young after a separation. Bits of insects and what she suspected to be insect blood clung to him. Several fuzzy wings were stuck to his hair. Kitty didn’t seem to find anything alarming in his blue-tinged appearance.
“Francis brought along one of his experimental goops,” Jack said by way of explanation. “The explosion of it was enough to eliminate most of the swarm. Melody’s homemade scattershot took out a lot of them too.”
“So deadly bugs and feral dogs . . .” Chloe fingered a bolt of violet fabric that looked like blue silk but felt remarkably sturdy. Nothing about this world was what she expected, and the more she saw, the more she thought it was far deadlier than she wanted to handle. She met Jack’s gaze and said, “I’m not sure who I pissed off to end up here.”
“Sweetheart, we’ve all asked ourselves that very same question.” Jack nodded cordially to the Wastelanders.
The woman Chloe had assumed was the proprietress bustled over. She still looked around warily for the remaining member of the Stinging Blight, and one of her employees was prowling nearby with what looked to be a rubbish bin and lid. Hector was leaning by the door watching the store for movement, and Kitty was . . . Chloe frowned. Kitty was shopping.
Jack followed her gaze and then winked at her. “Ma’am,” he said to the proprietress, “I believe my sister has selected a few items we would like to have delivered.”
“To the inn?”
“To our camp out past the Forked Tongue,” Jack clarified.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “I’ll hold your purchases here, and you can pick them up later when it’s more convenient.”
“Or we can just not purchase anything,” Kitty called out without lifting her attention from the black cloth she was now examining.
Hector’s knife went zinging by, pinning the remaining insect to a wooden changing screen. “Got it.”
With a casual gait, Jack sauntered over and plucked the knife and insect from the wood. He folded the tiny dead thing into his hand and then tossed the knife to Hector, who caught it with the sort of careless ease that made it appear that the blade was attracted to his hand. Then he tipped his head in a brief bow, opened the door, and left.
“The black and this blue stuff,” Jack said. “Katherine will tell you how much of each and sort out the delivery details. It seems only neighborly to buy a few things to compensate you for offering us shelter.”
The woman sighed with what sounded like reluctance, but one of her employees was already gathering the items while another was writing figures on a sheet of paper.
“I don’t suppose you can sew?” Jack said in a low voice.
Chloe’s expression must have been as doubtful as she felt because he smiled again, and offered, “I’ll teach you. Better to need to learn that skill and already be handy with a gun than the other way around.”
Chapter 20
When Ajani looked around the pathetic little settlement masquerading as a town, he wasn’t sure whether he was relieved to have arrived there. The jerkily moving conveyance had stopped, but it had done so in Gallows. In time, he hoped to eradicate these primitive outposts. Fortunately, time was one of the things he had in excess. He hadn’t aged a day in what he’d calculated as a touch over thirty years. Each importation tired him, and the toll of them seemed worse the last few years, but exhaustion was the only real burden his body had to absorb.
Daniel had gone ahead a few minutes ago to check the security of the house. Although there were servants aplenty inside, they could sometimes be persuaded to be disloyal. Until Daniel returned, Ajani waited with the rest of his people outside.
A young man stood waiting in the street outside his lodgings. “Sir?”
One of the servants opened the door with downcast eyes. Most of the local help weren’t worth knowing. They didn’t have the same loyalty that his imports did.
As Ajani exited his chair, the boy said, “They’re in town, sir.”
“Ashley?” Ajani looked behind him. “Reconnaissance, please. Take a couple of the others.”
As soon as Daniel stepped outside and gave the all-clear sign, Ashley motioned to two of the others, and they disappeared.
Daniel stepped closer to his employer. Now that he was the highest-ranking employee here, he was tasked with being Ajani’s right hand. All of the imports knew the rules. If one was given a duty but failed to carry it out, one wouldn’t get another opportunity anytime soon. If one failed severely enough, one would forfeit eternity.
“The brethren?” Ajani asked.
“En route as ordered,” the boy who’d been awaiting him answered.
Ajani allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. He’d arranged everything perfectly. Jackson’s motley band would eliminate the brethren who’d been beckoned to meet with him, and then they’d be appeased, feeling as if they’d won something, which always made them easier to handle. There were more than enough demon-summoning monks in the Wasteland, so the death of a few of them would serve a dual purpose: thinning their numbers and making the so-called Arrivals more malleable.
Chapter 21
An hour after their encounter with the Stinging Blight, Kitty was with Jack, Edgar, and Chloe walking down yet another street. They hadn’t seen any other monks or Ajani, and she suspected the other half of their group hadn’t either. Uncharitably, she wished she felt like she could trust Chloe enough to support Jack, so they could split into three groups instead of two. Until she was sure of the new woman, though, they’d work this way. The combined stresses of everything were making her irritable enough that Jack and Chloe probably wished they had split into separate groups.
“Maybe Garuda lied,” Kitty suggested.
Jack spared her a look that spoke volumes. Common knowledge in the Wasteland was that the bloedzuigers didn’t lie; it would violate their ridiculously detailed codes of etiquette. She and her brother had argued the matter often enough. He believed that etiquette prevented bloedzuigers from lying, but rules—especially rules of behavior—weren’t reason enough for her to accept the notion that they couldn’t lie. Rules were broken all the time, and Kitty simply didn’t trust the monsters.
“Sometimes I swear you’d believe Garuda no matter what he said,” she stated—as much for Jack’s sake as for Garuda’s. “I swallowed the nasty Verrot, which I hate, because the bony bastard said Ajani was around.”
Inside her head, she heard the bloedzuiger laugh.
“I told Jackson that the brethren have a benefactor,” Garuda said.
His voice always felt like cornhusks rubbing together in her mind.
“Cornhusks?” he prompted. “What is that?”
Clearly, she wasn’t concentrating on keeping her thoughts sorted into private and bloedzuiger-accessible. Over time, she’d gotten much better at erecting shields in her mind to keep Garuda from rummaging about in there, but despite her progress, she still felt her mental shields slip sometimes. If she hadn’t had to drink Verrot, she’d not have to deal with this.
“You should tell Jackson about your skills,” Garuda said.
Kitty shook her head. Her gaze went to Jack and Chloe, who were speaking in low voices. Whatever she did or didn’t do was her own business, not Garuda’s. She took a deep breath, calming herself, focusing. Then she stopped walking and put a hand on Edgar’s biceps. “Hold on.”
“I have never told Jackson about our little tête-à-têtes,” Garuda said. “You might not think me honorable, Katherine, but I’ve obeyed your request.”
Edgar gave her a curious look, but he stilled beside her all the same. Jack and Chloe were several steps away.
Carefully, Kitty envisioned Garuda and then began visualizing building a wall in front of him, a fortress of sorts that looked like it was made of heavy stones stacked atop one the other. When she reached his chin, she looked at him. He smiled at her, and she realized that he’d let her see him. She ignored the urge to look at his surroundings, forcing herself to stay focuse
d on her task instead.
She tried to lift another mental stone to block his now-grinning face and staring eyes.
“You get better and better at this, Katherine.”
“Kit?” Edgar had an arm around her waist. “Are you injured?”
“You won’t be able to lift that one,” Garuda chided. “Not unless you’re even more a rarity than I know.”
“Fuck you.”
“What?” Edgar slipped around in front of her, keeping his arm at her waist. He stared into her face, seeking some answer.
Kitty hissed, sounding even to her own ears too much like one of the monsters, and said, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Garuda’s pleased laughter filled her head. “I find it pleasing that you have made so much progress, Katherine. Almost no one in the Wasteland can do this.”
“Just bloedzuigers and me,” she half asked, half said.
The old bloedzuiger didn’t reply.
“Garuda? Did I block you?”
“No.”
Kitty realized that Jack and Chloe were staring at her, and Edgar looked at her with a dawning awareness. She couldn’t let her conversation with Garuda end just then. Hurriedly, she repeated her reply, this time clearly as a question, “So just me and the bloedzuigers?”
“That is what you said.” This time Garuda’s voice was guarded, which was telling. Kitty frowned. His evasiveness revealed a new truth: there was at least one other person or creature like her, and Garuda wasn’t interested in telling her who or what.
“Katherine?” Jack turned and looked at her. “Did you want to split up?”
In the street beside her, Edgar spoke in a voice too low for Jack to hear. “Unless you say otherwise, I think we ought to stay with Jack.”
“Your mate is right.”
Although Edgar was not her mate or spouse or any such thing, bloedzuigers didn’t understand partnership. At least, that was the answer Kitty clung to for not correcting Garuda. The alternative was admitting that she couldn’t lie to the bloedzuiger inside her head.