The Drowned Cities

  He wasn’t trying to change them. He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently.

  She thought that she’d been surviving. She thought that she’d been fighting for herself. But all she’d done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon of the Drowned Cities, not for their lives, but for their souls.

  “Fight the patriotic fight,” Stern said. “Smash the Army of God.”

  But what he meant was keep on killing. If you wanted to stay alive, you had to keep on killing.

  Mahlia was done with it. Done with being shoved around and threatened. Done with the bargaining that always said that if she wanted to live, someone else had to die. Done with armies like UPF and Army of God and Freedom Militia, who all claimed that they’d do right, just as soon as they were done doing wrong.

  “Ask him if he’ll give me my fingers back,” Mahlia croaked. Her throat felt dry from the drugs and it was almost too much effort to speak, but she managed.

  “Long as he’s making pretty promises, ask him if he’s got my pinky somewhere. He gonna sew me back together? He gonna get my hand back from the Army of God? Gonna make it all right?”

  One of the Eagle Guards strode toward Mahlia, but Stern waved him back.

  “Did you say something, young one?”

  Through the muffled distance of opium, Mahlia watched the man crouch over her. He wasn’t as big as his pictures. Not that imposing at all. But then he leaned close, and Mahlia imagined that she could smell death rising from him.

  “Did you say something to me?” he whispered.

  Mahlia wondered if she would have been frightened of him if she weren’t so drugged, but as she looked up at him, she felt very little at all. He was a monster. A man made powerful because he strung words together in pretty ways. A man who could get his face painted three stories tall, and get a bunch of war maggots to worship it.

  Mahlia cleared her throat. “If you got my hand somewhere, then we can do business.”

  The Colonel laughed. “You think you dictate for your friend?”

  “Nah.” Mahlia let her head lean back against the column. “He’ll do what he does. I can’t control him.” She looked dully up at the Colonel. “But that don’t mean I got to agree, and it don’t mean I got to go along.”

  “Even if it meant you could go free? Run on to some distant place? Run to Seascape Boston? Manhattan Orleans? Maybe Beijing and your father’s people there?”

  “You ain’t going to let us go.”

  “After your friend wins the war for us, I will.”

  Mahlia thought about that for a little while, finding her way around the edges of the man’s words.

  Finally she said, “No one ever wins, here. Bunch of dogs fighting over scraps of something… you don’t even know what it is.”

  For the first time, Stern looked irritated. “I fight to cleanse this place, and revive a country. You have no right to question the sacrifices we make.”

  “I bet the guys who started this war said stuff like that, too. Bet they sounded real nice.” She let her voice fall to a whisper. “You know something, though?” She let her voice fall lower. “You know what I realized?”

  Glenn Stern leaned close, intent. Mahlia gathered her strength, and spat full in the man’s face.

  “I still want my fingers back!” she shouted.

  The Colonel reared back, yelling and wiping spittle from his eyes. He glared at her. “You—”

  Quick as a cobra he slapped her. Once, twice, thrice. Mahlia’s head rocked back, her face flaming. Stern struck again. Pain exploded between Mahlia’s eyes as he pounded her already broken nose. A spike of obliterating pain. Blood gushed down her face.

  Mahlia cried out, despite the painkillers. She was almost blind with hurt, but still she forced herself to meet the man’s gaze. “That what you got?” Her voice cracked. “That all?”

  “You’d like more?” Glenn Stern raised his hand again.

  A low growl filled the marbled room, heavy with threat. They both turned at the sound. The half-man was watching them both.

  “I do not accept your offer,” Tool said. “I will not war on your behalf.”

  Glenn Stern looked from Mahlia to Tool, and back again. Mahlia smiled.

  Stern said, “You’re playing a dangerous game, girl.”

  “ ’Cause you’ll hurt me some more?” Mahlia let her head roll back against the column. “That was always the way it was going to be. You got your war and I’m just meat in the gears. So hurry up, old man. Grind me up.”

  Suddenly, Lieutenant Sayle appeared. “I have a solution, I think.”

  Mahlia didn’t like the way he smiled as he murmured into the Colonel’s ear. Glenn Stern’s expression hardened as he listened. He turned to Mahlia.

  “You want fingers, girl? I can get you fingers.”

  43

  OCHO AND THE REST of the platoon were huddled in a corner of the palace, a huge round room surrounded by more columns and statuary. Ammunition and weapons were stockpiled all around, watched over by more Eagle Guards.

  Every once in a while, another round from the 999s whistled in, and Ocho kept expecting a shell to just come smashing through and hit the ordnance and blow them all up, but so far the rubble overhead seemed to be protecting them.

  He crouched beside Ghost. The boy was staring at the marble and tile floor. All sorts of intricate patterns covered it, decorative knots and geometric tangles running along the floor to where they were hidden under crates of weaponry.

  “You okay, warboy?”

  Ghost just shrugged. Ocho didn’t like the look on Ghost’s face. Too doubtful, too withdrawn, too haunted.

  He’d thought that the boy was fully recruited, but now he was wondering. Using him for bait to get the half-man had been a risk. But now that it was over, the boy should have been pulling back together. It wasn’t like every soldier in the platoon hadn’t had to prove loyalty at one point or another.

  “I saved her,” Ghost said. “Long time ago, I saved her from the Army of God. When they cut off her hand.”

  “Best not to think about that. She ain’t with us. She ain’t a brother,” Ocho said. “Don’t spend your nevermind worrying about civvies. They ain’t us.”

  “We were all civvies.”

  Ocho tapped his cheek. “We ain’t now. We’re above them. Don’t put yourself down on their level, soldier. We’re UPF. You stand tall.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it, soldier,” Ocho said. “You’re something now. We brought you up, ’cause we could tell you were special. Now you got a place and you got brothers who will throw down for you. Don’t go throwing that off for some castoff war maggot.”

  He was about to say more, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Lieutenant Sayle.

  “Sergeant,” Sayle motioned for Ocho. “You’re needed. Bring the recruit.” He waved at Ghost.

  Ocho slapped Ghost on the back. “Come on, soldier. Time to get back to work.”

  They followed the lieutenant down a marbled hall and were stopped by a pair of Eagle Guards. “Drop your weapons,” one of them said.

  “Say again?” Ocho asked.

  “Leave your guns here.”

  Ocho tightened his grip on his rifle. “I don’t disarm for no one.”

  “Disarm, Sergeant,” Sayle said, his voice hard. “It’s for a purpose.” He surrendered his own sidearm as well.

  Reluctantly, Ocho stripped off his rifle and bandoliers and motioned for Ghost to do the same.

  As soon as they were disarmed, they were led down another hall, past more Eagle Guards, and then into a huge room, full of columns and soldiers and chalkboards. The murmur of strategy surrounded them.

  Ocho realized that they were in the heart of the UPF’s war room. From here, all orders issued. The lieute
nant led them between the carved columns that held up the vaulted roof. They came around a column and Ocho gasped.

  Colonel Glenn Stern stood before him, smiling. Ocho jumped to attention and saluted, jabbing Ghost to do the same. The Colonel returned the salute with a quick nod.

  “Sergeant,” he said, “I’ve heard good things about you from the lieutenant.” Ocho stammered thanks but the Colonel’s gaze had fallen on Ghost.

  “This is the one?”

  “Yes, sir,” the LT said.

  “Good.” The Colonel motioned for them to follow. They navigated amongst more columns, threading between them to the far side of the room. Ghost sucked in his breath. “Hold him, Sergeant,” Sayle ordered.

  Ocho looked from Stern to the girl before them, uncertain.

  “Hold him!” the lieutenant shouted, and Ocho did as he was told. He grabbed Ghost’s shoulder as the LT did the same on the other side.

  Ghost started to struggle.

  “Don’t,” Ocho warned. “LT’s got a plan.”

  They muscled Ghost forward. The half-man was chained, ankles and wrists locked down, lengths of chain as thick as Ocho’s arms disappearing into poured concrete.

  Even captured, the monster was a frightening sight. Not far away, the doctor girl lay roped to her own pillar. Blood smeared her face and her skin was blotched with bruises.

  “Mahlia?” Ghost asked.

  “LT?” Ocho asked, uncertainly. “Are you sure—”

  “Steady, soldier,” Sayle said.

  Glenn Stern was standing over the girl, smiling. “It’s time you learned your choices have consequences, girl.”

  The doctor girl was looking from Stern to Ghost. “Mouse?”

  “What are you doing?” Ghost asked them, looking from Stern to Sayle to Ocho. “What’s going on?”

  “One last time,” the Colonel said to Mahlia. “Your friend wars on our behalf, or you suffer the consequences.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Mahlia?” Ghost asked. “What’s going on?”

  Ocho was wondering the same thing. There was a terrible tension in the room. The smell of blood was strong. The girl huddled against the pillar. The half-man was growling, low and warning. Ocho had seen similar scenes, but this one filled him with unease.

  Glenn Stern turned to Sayle and Ocho. “Put him on his knees.”

  “LT?” Ocho asked.

  The lieutenant barked at him, “Do it, soldier!”

  Reflexively, Ocho responded to the order. Glenn Stern produced a knife. “You want this for the boy?” he asked Mahlia.

  The girl was staring in agony. At first, she’d looked like she wasn’t even there, so drugged and out of it, she’d seemed, but now she was straining forward. “Don’t touch him!”

  “Mahlia?” Ghost asked again, his voice cracking. He was starting to fight now, but Ocho and the lieutenant held him. The half-man was growling, louder, deep in his throat.

  Ocho knew what was coming, and yet his mind refused to believe it. It felt as if someone else was holding Ghost. Someone else was forcing the soldier boy to hold still as he finally realized the boy was about to be a blood sacrifice.

  Is this me? Am I doing this?

  Ocho’s mind felt like it was molasses. Ghost struggled, but Ocho was stronger. He thrust out his warboy’s hand, sickened, as Stern seized the boy’s fingers.

  “You want this?” the Colonel shouted.

  The knife flashed and Ghost howled. Blood poured onto the tiles. And there was a finger, too. Right there on the floor. Ghost shrieked and bucked. Ocho held him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the finger.

  Am I doing this?

  “What’re we doing?” Ocho shouted. “He’s our boy!” No one seemed to hear him, though. Ocho wondered if he’d said anything at all.

  Had he just turned coward and shut up? Did he imagine that he’d protested?

  Ghost was still thrashing against Ocho’s restraining hands, and Stern was scooping up Ghost’s finger. He waved it in Mahlia’s face as she and Ghost sobbed.

  “Is this what you want? You want more fingers? You want them all?”

  “Let him go!” Mahlia screamed. She fought against her ropes. Ghost bucked against Ocho’s grip. Glenn Stern stalked back to him. The blade flashed again. Red on the floor. Blood and bright as rubies. Brighter than the sun.

  It didn’t make sense. Ghost was their boy. Ocho had recruited him. He was theirs. UPF forever. Full bars. The Colonel might have been vicious to the Army of God, or Taylor’s Wolves, or civvies, but not—

  Sayle’s voice whipped Ocho with command. “Hold his hand, Sergeant! Stand strong!”

  The Colonel didn’t see it coming. Ocho himself was surprised.

  One moment Ocho was holding Ghost, fighting to keep the boy from twisting away as the Colonel went after another trophy—and they were all jostling and wrestling now that the boy knew what was coming—and the next moment, Ocho had his own knife in his hand.

  He sunk it deep into the Colonel’s kidney. In and out, just like he’d been trained. Warm blood poured over Ocho’s hand.

  The Colonel gave a gasp. The man’s own knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Without Ocho to restrain him, Ghost popped free of Sayle, screaming, and dove for the Colonel’s blade where it lay on the tile.

  A couple of Eagle Guards were running forward, shouting, trying to figure out what was going on, calling for backup as they ran. Ghost scooped up the Colonel’s blade in his good hand and lunged for Stern. The man didn’t even dodge as the boy sank his blade.

  Glenn Stern’s eyes were wide, surprised, his hands trying to reach around to the hole in his back and then reaching around to the front where Ghost had just stuck him. Ocho wasn’t even sure if the man was there anymore, or if it was just some lizard part of his brain, still making his hands move, while he bled out…

  More Eagle Guards were charging into the room, but they were all zeroing in on Ghost. They fired and bullets ricocheted, missing. The LT was pulling his own knife, staring at Ghost and the Colonel. Ghost jammed the knife into the man’s belly again. Mahlia was screaming and struggling to get out of her ropes, and the half-man was roaring, and the LT… He was staring right at Ocho.

  Pale gray eyes blazed with understanding as he took in Ocho’s bloody hands, realizing that he had a traitor in his midst, even as everyone else was distracted by the captive boy who still drove the knife into Glenn Stern.

  Ocho didn’t give the lieutenant a chance. He took a quick step up to the man and drove his blade into Sayle’s gut. Did it again, to make sure.

  The lieutenant gasped. “Why?” But Ocho didn’t have time for him. He slapped the man’s blade away and shouted for a medic, and then he turned as weapons chattered on full auto.

  Bloody holes spattered up and down Ghost, small perforations in the front, big gaping wounds in the back. Chips of stone whizzed past Ocho as bullets missed and ricocheted, and then a mob of Eagle Guards fell upon Ghost.

  Roaring and screaming. The ratcheting of automatic weapons. Blood mist in the air, a whirlwind of viscera and bones and bodies. Men seemed to disappear before Ocho’s eyes, replaced by sprays of blood on the walls and columns.

  In their rush to aid the Colonel, some of the Eagles had strayed into the half-man’s reach. They simply came apart in the monster’s grasp and then the monster had their weapons, and the rest of the Eagles were dying as well, gunned down with terrifying marksmanship.

  Ocho dove for the ground and crawled behind a column, wishing he could find shelter. The half-man roared and fired, emptying clips. Men were screaming. A body tumbled down beside Ocho. He grabbed for the man’s weapon as more Eagles boiled into the command center. They were ducking and dodging behind columns, snapping shots, but the half-man seemed to anticipate them. Every time a soldier showed himself, he took a bullet in the face.

  Ocho belly-crawled behind a desk, hoping to make it to the door. He just had to get out…

  He glimpse
d the girl, still tied. Trying to lie flat as bullets whizzed around her. She was sobbing and trying to reach Ghost where he lay in a spreading pool of his own blood.

  The half-man’s weapon clicked empty.

  Ocho wasn’t sure if the other soldiers realized it, but the half-man was a sitting duck now. With a curse, Ocho took his rifle and leaned out, and then, with a prayer to the Fates, he slid his rifle across the floor, right to the monster.

  The half-man caught it. Locked eyes with Ocho.

  What am I doing?

  But it was already done. When Ocho put the knife in the Colonel it was done. There was no going back now. Ocho crawled across to where the Colonel lay in a heap. He rolled the man over and started going through his pockets. The man flailed at Ocho, but Ocho shoved his hands away.

  “Fight the good fight, soldier,” Stern whispered.

  “You got the key?” Ocho asked. “You got the key, Colonel?”

  The Colonel looked at him. “You’ll keep the fight going? You won’t let the traitors ruin everything?” he gasped.

  “UPF forever,” Ocho said. “That’s right. But you got to give me the key if we’re going to fight. Gotta get that dog-face free.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “You…”

  But Ocho had found the key for himself by then. He pulled it from the man’s breast pocket and hurled it toward the half-man as a blow like a fist hit him in the leg and spun him.

  Ocho gasped at the numbness. He’d been shot. Keep moving. Don’t be an easy target. He crawled toward Mahlia. He got out his knife, started sawing at her ropes. They gave under the razor edge, but when she got free, she went after him, beating at him with her stump, clawing at him with her last fingers.

  “I didn’t do it!” Ocho tried to fight her off. “It’s not my fault!”

  But she wasn’t listening. Bullets whined and zipped around them. He threw himself flat, but Mahlia was stumbling to her feet. Ocho reached for her, but with a bullet in his leg, he couldn’t prevent her from standing upright.

  “Get down!”

  Stone and marble and bullets ripped around her, a maelstrom of death, but she seemed unaware, uncaring. Like she wanted to die. She ran through the whirlwind, slid down beside Ghost.