He runs to the hangars, keeping crouched low, and disappears behind them. The lookout guards are on the fence further round the other side. If they patrol the circuit it’ll take them twenty minutes, I reckon, but, as Nesbitt said, they don’t look like they’re going to be doing that even once.
After ten or more minutes Nesbitt appears round the back of the furthest hangar and he runs to the middle hangar and then the near one and then toward me. I keep my eyes on the guards but they’re so still they might well be asleep.
Nesbitt stays on his side of the fence, flattened to the ground as I am now.
“Well?” I whisper.
“Can’t see in. They’ve covered over all the cracks in the walls. There are no lights on in there. I could hear voices in one hangar but that was empty last night.”
“So there could be a load of Hunters here that weren’t there before?”
“Or new recruits, or they’ve moved them from the other hangar. I don’t know.”
“Shit!”
“What do you think?”
“I think you should go back and have a proper look.”
Nesbitt swears at me. “I have had a proper look.”
I shake my head. “Well, you’re telling Celia.”
We have to wait about half an hour before Nesbitt has the pleasure of doing that. Celia runs to us, swift and silent despite her size; she always has been surprisingly agile. Behind her follow Claudia, Gabriel, Sameen, Greatorex, and Olivia. Marcus brings up the rear.
Gabriel drops to the ground by my left side and Celia to my right.
“Well?” she asks me.
“Things have changed. Nesbitt wants to tell you.”
She talks through the fence to Nesbitt. They talk so quietly that I can’t make out what they’re saying.
I can see Celia raise her head and look around and Nesbitt runs off again to the hangars.
I whisper to Gabriel, “Something’s changed. Not sure if it’s for better or worse.”
“You worried?”
I shake my head. But inside there’s a part of me that’s anxious. Even with Marcus around there’s always the chance of a stray bullet or a lucky shot or a Hunter with a special Gift or something.
Nesbitt has disappeared round the farthest hangar. A light comes on inside the nearest one, a faint glow under the door at this end. It’s getting light on the horizon too. The Hunters are beginning to wake. We should be attacking any minute but we’re far from ready and at this rate Nesbitt is going to get caught. So much for an easy first mission.
I keep my eyes on the hangar where I expect Nesbitt to reappear but still he doesn’t. Celia turns to me and says, “You and Gabriel to the first hangar. Marcus is to take the guards and follow to the furthest hangar where I will be. Greatorex takes the middle.”
Marcus goes through the fence first, then he turns invisible. The rest of us slither through and I set off with Gabriel and Sameen, fast.
I reach the door ahead of Gabriel and kick it in with so much force it almost hits me back in the face. I’m stunned by what I see, though. It’s not an empty hangar—there are three rows of bunk beds extending the full length. Enough to sleep nearly a hundred people. All the beds are empty, or so it seems, but we have to check. I drop to the ground and look under them. It’s so new and unused that there’s nothing here. But I can’t see to the far end and now I wish Nesbitt was with me.
Gabriel says, “Sameen, stay here. Guard the door. I’ll take the right. Nathan, you take the left.” And he runs past me down the right-hand side to the far end of the hangar, shouting, “Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty.”
I get up and go slightly slower down the left aisle. But I see no one; there are no corners to hide in. Gabriel meets me at the far end and we come back, running and double- checking. As we reach Sameen gunfire bursts out from another hangar.
Five Hunters run from the middle hangar toward the gate. And I’m chasing them, going for the fastest one first. I tackle her, my knife in my hand, and slit her throat in a single movement. She was a novice; she didn’t even fight. The girl behind is now running past me and I tackle her, punch her. She’s out cold. I look round and see Gabriel has shot one of them, two I think, as there’s only one still upright. Sameen caught her but she’s knocked Sameen back.
The Hunter starts to run but I’m in her path and I catch her, swing her round, and stab her in the stomach, ripping upward. I let her body drop to the ground and notice Marcus coming toward us from the gate. He passes the unconscious body of the Hunter. The second one I got. She’s starting to groan.
Marcus goes to her and breaks her neck.
More shots coming from the hangars. Marcus heads to the far one. I run to the middle one with Gabriel and Sameen.
Olivia is at the doorway. She looks terrified. She says, “They’ve shot Greatorex. She can’t get out.”
Greatorex is inside the hangar on the floor, surrounded by dead bodies of trainee Hunters. She’s alive because she’s being protected by a body lying on top of her. More gunfire comes from the far end of the hangar.
I say to Gabriel and Sameen, “I’ll crawl in and grab Greatorex. You two’ll have to pull us both out.”
Gabriel shoots at the back of the hangar while I slide in along the floor as low as possible, the bodies around Greatorex providing cover for me too. I grab Greatorex’s wrists. They’re thinner, more delicate than I was expecting. She’s light.
“Pull!” I shout. Gabriel and Sameen drag us out. The Hunter’s body comes with us. But we slide out and onto the grass and then roll to the side.
Greatorex has been shot in the leg. Olivia cuts her trouser leg away to look at the wound.
“How many in there?” I ask.
“Four, I think,” Greatorex replies. She looks like she’s going to pass out.
“What do you want to do?” Gabriel asks.
“Not commit suicide,” I say. “Wait for Marcus.” The hangar next door has gone quiet and we don’t have to wait for long.
Celia, Claudia, and Marcus join us.
“Are we all clear here?” Celia asks.
“No,” Gabriel replies. “There are four more inside here, at the far end. Fully armed.”
Marcus says, “Don’t come in for a few minutes.” Then he goes invisible and we wait.
There’s a blast of lightning, and the far end of the hangar is in flames and then there’s a burst of gunfire, and another and another.
Finally it goes silent. We hold the door of the hangar open to see in. The only movement is of flames and smoke.
Marcus appears beside me. “Five of them,” he says.
Celia looks at Gabriel and says, “Do a body count, now. And make sure it’s right. If any are alive I want to keep them that way. I want to talk to them.”
Gabriel and Sameen disappear and Celia moves to check on Greatorex.
Nesbitt limps over and slumps down on the ground beside me. His face is bruised and one eye is swollen shut.
“Where were you, partner?” I ask.
“One of the Hunters came out and saw me when I was scouting about. Bloody expert in kung-fu or something, she was. Took me ages to sort her out. What did I miss?”
I’m tempted to make a comment about lots of people dying but I’m too tired.
“Greatorex got shot in the leg. It’s lucky none of us got killed,” I say.
Gabriel and Sameen return at a run, sliding to the ground beside us. Gabriel says, “Twenty-two. Four older- looking Hunters, so I guess they’re the trainers, and eighteen younger ones. All dead.”
“A few more than ten recruits and two Hunters,” I say. Though I can’t blame Nesbitt. I’m angrier at Celia for taking the risk. If Marcus hadn’t been with us it would have been harder for sure. Some of us would be dead.
Celia says, “We need to get Greatorex back to base.
Start collecting whatever we can use. We go in ten minutes.”
Blondine
The next raid is six days later in France again and we are up against fourteen Hunters. It goes smoothly: none of us are injured. Greatorex is healing well but misses that raid and the one after that, which is even smaller. The big difference, which I’m not happy with, is that, on the third raid, Annalise, Sarah, and another two foragers are brought along to help carry away anything we find afterward. They stay well back from the fighting and only come when one of the trainees gets them after the fighting’s over. But I’m uncomfortable with Annalise seeing me. The others fight with guns, so don’t get messed up, but I use a knife and end up looking like I’ve stepped out of a horror movie. I want to find somewhere to wash but first I decide to cover the bodies before the foragers arrive. This is something we never normally bother with.
There are ten bodies and I start to cover them with blankets from one of the tents. As I lay a blanket over one of the furthest bodies I notice that her eyes are closed and I can’t see any wound on her at all. I think she may be playing dead. I’m not sure if she’s got a gun in her jacket but I cover her with a blanket. I look over to the others but they aren’t paying any attention to me; they’re all busy with their jobs.
I get my knife out, pull the blanket back, and say, “Open your eyes.”
I’m not sure she can speak English but I bet she has the basics so I say, “Open your eyes or I cut the left one out. Now!”
She opens her eyes. They’re brown with silver sparks. White Witch sparks.
I shout now for the others to come. I’m still not sure what weapons she’s got. Marcus arrives within seconds and Gabriel not long after that.
It turns out she hasn’t got a gun but two knives. She’s French. Her name is Blondine but she won’t say more than that. At this stage Celia arrives and I’m about to leave her to it and go and find somewhere to wash when she says, “Nathan, she’s your prisoner. Stay with her until we’re ready to go back to camp.”
I look for Nesbitt, who is still my partner, so he can guard Blondine while I go and wash. But, of course, Nesbitt is never around when I need him.
I’ve never had a prisoner before. I’ve been one often enough but that doesn’t mean I’m sure what to do. The others leave to do their jobs and I see Annalise glancing over at me.
The only person who doesn’t have another job to do is Marcus. He stays with me. He’s staring at Blondine and not in a good way. I move to put myself between them.
He says, “You should kill her now. She deserves to die. They all do.”
Blondine whimpers. I say, “No, she’s my prisoner.” I grab hold of her arm as I have a bad feeling she might run. I can feel her shaking. I tell her, “Stay with me.”
It’ll be safer for Blondine if we go back into the center of the Hunter camp. I say to her, “We’ll go over to the others. Stay close to me. Say nothing.”
She’s so close to my side she’s almost tripping over my legs and she’s crying now and moaning quietly.
Marcus walks with us too, staring at her the whole time. It’s only a hundred meters but it feels like miles. With each step I think he’ll just lash out and kill her.
I head to where everyone is gathering. It looks like we’ll be heading back to base camp in a few minutes. I stop. Blondine stops too. Her arm is touching mine. Marcus is leaning in on her and I know that if I don’t get him away he’ll kill her.
Nesbitt is pulling on a huge rucksack of swag he’s collected. I say to him, “Stay with her. She’s our prisoner.” I point at him and tell Blondine, “Do as he says.”
Then I turn to Marcus but before I can speak he says, “Hunters caught my father, your grandfather, and tortured him to death. My father. And his father. And his. And his. If they caught us what would they do?”
“That doesn’t mean we do it.”
I walk past him, hoping he’ll come with me. I have to get him away from her. I half turn to him and say, “Don’t hurt her. Please. I don’t ask much from you.”
I keep walking off and he says, “Why?” But I think he’s heading my way. I keep walking. He’s with me. He asks again, “Why?”
We’re in farmland and I vault a gate and go into the next field. I get to the far end of it and stop.
He looks at me. “I can easily walk back and kill her.”
“I know.” I shrug. “But I don’t think you will if you don’t see her.”
“Out of sight, out of mind?”
“Something like that.”
“Why won’t you kill her?”
“I don’t want to be the sort of person who kills prisoners.”
“When I look at her I don’t see a prisoner. I see a Hunter. I see an enemy,” he says. “We see things differently. This is the first time I’ve seen your other side.”
“My White Witch side?”
“The side of you that is like your mother. Don’t think of her as a White Witch. I don’t. I think of her as a good person and that can’t be said of many White Witches. Can’t be said of many people at all.”
I look at him and see him differently too. Not as a great Black Witch but just as a person. A person whose father was tortured to death; whose mother, Saba, was chased down by Hunters and killed. A man who couldn’t live with the woman he loved and whose son was imprisoned in a cage.
“Don’t you think you could have been good? Under different circumstances, I mean.”
He laughs and says, “The point of being good is doing it when it’s tough, not when it’s easy. Your mother was a good person.”
* * *
We all go back to base camp together, carrying as much as we can. Blondine is hooded, her hands tied behind her back. Nesbitt stays with her. I stay with Marcus. At the camp Celia takes Blondine and I wonder if she’ll have a cage fixed up for her. But I really don’t care. I’m just glad that Marcus hasn’t killed her.
We’re all starving and I go to the canteen area with the others. It’s already lunchtime and there’s a lot of people getting food. As I get my stew I hear the complaints. The stew is thin. There’s no bread. There’s no fruit. There’s no this. There’s no that.
Nesbitt joins me. He says, “Do they think it’s a holiday camp?”
Gabriel jokes, “If they find out Blondine got the last of the bread there’ll be murder.”
Nesbitt says, “If that’s true I’ll murder her myself.”
I look around and notice that as usual we, the fighters and scouts, are the only mixed group. Everyone else sits in groups of Whites, Blacks, or Half Bloods. I can hear a group of Whites near us talk about “the prisoner”; some want her tried and executed, others just want her executed.
“That girl’s a problem,” says Nesbitt. “And if we get more prisoners then we’ve got even bigger problems. Feeding them, guarding them.” He finishes his stew and says, “Killing them is simpler.”
“I think Celia will question Blondine and then send her back,” says Gabriel.
“What?” Nesbitt and I both stare at him.
“It’s a logical thing to do. As you say, keeping prisoners is a hassle. If she lets them go, the Alliance seems reasonable, and when this is over people will remember that. Forgiveness is important.”
“Being sensible is too. Blondine will have a gun shoved in her hand and be sent off to fight us again,” I say.
Gabriel says, “Will she? I’m not so sure, and Celia knows how the Hunters think as well as anyone. Hunters kill deserters. They hate any sort of betrayal and being captured isn’t far off that: they’re supposed to die fighting for one other. She won’t get a hero’s welcome, that’s for sure. They may even execute her. I imagine Blondine might rather take her chances as a prisoner with us than back with the Hunters.”
It does sound logical the way he says it but I’m not sure Marcus will see it that way.
br /> * * *
It’s not until that night that I get to see Annalise alone. She always comes to my spot by the tree when she’s finished her chores and we spend the night together.
This time I want to talk. I have to tell her about Kieran; I’ve waited long enough and Annalise needs to know about her brother. But as usual the opening line is the difficult one. She says, “You’re even more silent than usual.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“How to tell you something. Something serious.”
She sits back.
“I should have told you weeks ago. But I didn’t. I kept putting it off, waiting for the right time and crap like that. But there isn’t ever going to be a right time and so I have to tell you now.”
She’s looking into my face and I keep my eyes on hers when I say, “It’s about Kieran.”
She waits. I think she must already have a good idea what I’m going to say.
“What about Kieran?”
“You remember I told you that I killed a Hunter in Switzerland? There were two of them at Mercury’s cottage while I was waiting for Gabriel. They found my trail. Followed me. They attacked me and Nesbitt. Nesbitt killed one; he was Kieran’s partner.”
Annalise waits.
“The other one was Kieran.”
Annalise looks into my eyes. Hers fill with tears. “You killed him?”
“I should have told you before. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“And are you sorry about Kieran?”
I can’t lie about that so I say nothing.
Annalise gets to her feet and I do as well. I think she’ll leave. I say, “I had the chance to kill him before then but I didn’t. If Kieran and his partner hadn’t hunted me, they’d be alive.”
She says, “You should have told me before.” She sits down on the ground again. “He was a bully, a Hunter. But he was my brother.” She wipes her eyes and says, “I wish the world was different. I wish he’d been different.” She starts crying again.