“Thanks, Diane,” I said, blinking back tears. “Hey. Have you, um, seen anybody unusual hanging out in the neighborhood?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Is someone threatening you?”
“Nothing too bad. And I’m not getting into any trouble,” I said quickly, trying to walk the fine line between raising her alertness and sending her into full-on freak-out mode. “But if you … if you see anyone, let me know, okay?”
“Mm-mm-mm.” She shook her head. “You know we’re a tight neighborhood around here. Nobody’s mentioned anything, but I’ll ask around and tell folks to keep a lookout. You never can be too careful these days. Especially with all that craziness up in Providence.”
“Yeah.” I sat down at the table and dished rice onto our plates. “Exactly.”
I ate a few pounds of Chinese food while Diane told me about the latest drama down at the lockup, and the whole time I stared at her, wondering what my life would have been like if she were my real mom, if I’d had her to protect me all along. It was pointless to ponder, but I couldn’t help but think it might have been kind of nice, even now, to let her be that person for me. So many things were like that since I’d returned to the land of the living—my weird friendship with Tegan and going out with Ian, a normal guy who actually seemed to like me—real connections that were nothing more than could-have-beens, because I wasn’t here to have a life. I was here to be a Guard.
After such a heavy meal—and maybe some of Raphael’s help—Diane fell asleep early, and I crept out of the house after checking to make sure that every single window and door in the split-level was locked. I walked around the neighborhood, trying to detect the scent of incense or anything unusual. Nothing. I drove to the Guard house and waded through ankle-deep puddles to get to the front steps. Jim and Henry were waiting for me in the entryway.
Even though it was his night off, I looked around for Malachi. We had parted ways in silence this afternoon. Every topic of conversation was too painful, and he’d been more withdrawn than ever.
“He’s not here,” said Jim. “Laney picked him up a few minutes ago.”
“Great,” I said in a voice that revealed I thought it was anything but. “Let’s get going.” After our failure this afternoon, I’d decided that Henry needed to go undercover. Tracking the Mazikin wasn’t working, but if he could get himself recruited …
Henry hefted a ragged pack on his back and adjusted the cap on his head. “Ready.”
I drove us to Roger Williams Park at the south end of the city. We’d agreed Henry should walk from there, as we didn’t want him seen with me and Jim. I parked at the very edge of the lot.
“Thank you for doing this,” I said, suddenly worried for him. I’d been forcing myself not to think too much about what I was asking of him, focused entirely on being a strong Captain, but now that wasn’t so easy. What if I was condemning him to an eternity of suffering in the Mazikin city? After what Rita said today, that seemed like a distinct possibility. And knowing Henry had someone who was waiting for him to return, someone he was desperate to get back to, made this even harder.
Henry gave me a ghost of a smile. “Malachi told me what that wild-haired Mazikin said to you. I won’t let it happen to me, Captain.”
I nodded. If he got trapped in their nest, he’d be hopelessly outnumbered. In the dark city, the Mazikin had been on foot, and it was much easier there to peel off and escape them after being led to their nest. But here, they were driving around, and I was betting they were picking up victims in that van or other vehicles. Sneaking away would be difficult—especially if they were parking in a garage near the nest.
I swallowed and tried not to fidget. “You take care of yourself. Stay alert.”
Henry stared at me, his face half in darkness, half lit up by the streetlamp above us. “I spent over sixty years in the Wasteland, Captain.”
He let that sink in for a few seconds, the idea that he had been there, that he had belonged there. But it also meant that he had survived there, and if he was a Guard, the Judge must have seen something in him, something beyond a corrupted, evil soul. Henry read my thoughts in my expression. “Don’t think I’m soft because of what I told you. And don’t think I’m better than I am.”
“You don’t want to kill. You said it yourself.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not capable of it. Or that I haven’t done it willingly, many times.”
“We’re all capable of it, Henry. That’s why we’re here.”
Something like respect glinted in his eyes. “Fair enough, but I’d venture to say I have a little more experience with it than you do. I was a professional killer during my life on Earth. I earned my spot in the Wasteland. And in both places, I learned never to lose my awareness of my surroundings.”
“Even when you’re in a safe place?”
Henry laughed, a hollow, husky sound. “No such thing, Captain.”
“So are you sure you want to do this?”
“No wanting about it,” he said firmly. “I’m a convict, Captain. A conscript. It’s all I am, and I got used to that a long time ago. Fighting it does nothing.” He cast a knowing glance over his shoulder at Jim, who answered with stony silence.
I got out of the car, wondering if in fifty years I would be as emptied out and hopeless as Henry. But … Malachi wasn’t like that, and he had been a Guard for a decade before Henry died. He seemed to have a sense of hope. At least, he had until recently. Now I was starting to wonder.
Henry closed his own door quietly and stood facing us. He took his phone out of his pocket. “Malachi got me all charged up this afternoon. He said the battery should last for several days if I’m not talking on it.”
“Text if you have new information.”
Jim stepped forward. “Good luck, man.”
Henry seemed to think that was funny. “Same to you. Happy hunting. You’ll hear from me soon.”
He turned and strode away, looking like a walking scarecrow, scraggly and skinny. But he was strong—strong enough to run for blocks while carrying me, and I wasn’t exactly a waif. He could take care of himself.
“Ready?” Jim asked.
“Yeah.” I twirled my keys around my fingers and got back in the car. Jim joined me in the front seat. “We’ll go downtown tonight.” The air was definitely warmer now that April had caught up with us, and people would be out on the streets. Tonight was also the first night the homeless were without the winter shelters to protect them.
We parked in a narrow alley between buildings, fully expecting to return to a ticket. I lowered the hood of my sweatshirt over my face and took Jim’s hand. We looked like an ordinary young couple, with our weapons nicely concealed under our baggy clothes. This would become more difficult when summer arrived. I had hoped to complete this mission by the time I graduated, but now Henry’s words were echoing in my head, and I realized that even if I did complete the mission, that didn’t mean I was free to live my life. I might spend the rest of my existence as a Guard.
Unless the Mazikin caught me and used my body to house their Queen, of course.
“You’re hurting my hand,” Jim said, annoyed. “I might need it later.”
I released him from my death grip. “Sorry.”
“You all right, Captain? Did that Mazikin get to you this afternoon? Certainly seemed to have Malachi on edge. And he wasn’t even related to it.”
“I wasn’t related to it, either,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You know what I mean.” He pulled his ringing phone from his pocket. “Hold up. It’s Tegan.”
He stepped over by a storefront and answered, and I watched the grim expression on his face transform, softening with … I didn’t even know what it was. Hope? Happiness? His eyes met mine, and then his smile evaporated. He was on duty. “I’ll call you later, okay? No, definitely. Definitely.”
He hung up and turned toward me. “What’s a prom like?”
I laughed as we started to walk again. “Do I lo
ok like a girl who’s been to a prom?”
He shrugged. “Can I go?”
“Tegan asked you?” This was an interesting development.
“I want to look out for her. But I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up, not understanding these local customs.”
We crossed a busy street, with neon lights from the clubs streaking our faces, turning our skin purple and pink. I kept my eyes open for that dark-blue van or any other suspicious, slow-moving vehicle.
“I guess a lot of this stuff must seem weird.” I waved my hand at the HOT GIRLZ marquee above our heads.
“No, the Blinding City looks a little like this. Only much brighter. Much more … extreme.”
“So kind of like Las Vegas?”
He gave me a blank look.
“How did you end up in the Blinding City, anyway? I thought the Countryside was heaven. Like, a final resting place.”
“Only if you want it to be,” he said, pulling his own hood up so that I couldn’t see his face.
“I’ve been there. I’ve felt it. Why wouldn’t you want that?”
“How would you know to want it if you’d never felt anything else?” His voice was hard. “I spent my whole existence there. There were always people around to take care of me, to teach me. I had everything I needed. But like I told you … when I reached a certain age, I stopped getting older. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“My body stopped changing when it reached maturity. But people keep changing, even if their bodies don’t. I started to want things. I didn’t even know what, but it was this ache inside me. A hunger. And slowly, the Countryside became a prison to me.”
“A prison? Are you serious? I don’t get that at all. Every person I met in the afterlife would have given anything to end up there.”
He snorted. “Come on, Captain. You know that’s not true. Didn’t you spend some time in the dark city? Are you telling me every person wanted to leave?”
He was right. A lot of people had wanted to get out, but a few seemed determined to stay where they were, growing themselves houses, collecting junk, pouring drugs and booze into their bodies, anything to fill the empty spaces inside them that had led them to kill themselves in the first place.
“The human capacity for self-delusion is limitless,” he said, seeing that I wasn’t going to argue. “That’s what she said to me. The Judge. After I tried to sneak into the Blinding City.”
“You tried to sneak in? To a place where people get punished?” I nearly tripped as my shoe snagged on the jutting, cracked sidewalk.
“You don’t understand. One day, it just … appeared. No one around me seemed to see it, but I could. Everywhere I turned, it was there at the horizon. From the outside, it looks like a playground. Anything you want. It was everything I wanted. So when the Guards caught me scaling the wall and took me to the Sanctum, the Judge said I could have it. She assigned me to Guard it.”
“Did you actually like it there?”
“Yes, absolutely.” He chuckled. “And no, not at all. It’s a terrible place.” He ran his hand along a brick wall. “The diamond-encrusted walls will cut you. The luscious food turns to ashes in your mouth. Every alley caters to a different addiction, but it all turns to shit as soon as you touch it. Or snort it. Or inject it. After a moment of pleasure, it does nothing but hurt.” He shuddered. “It’s a gorgeous, perfect kind of torture, and the citizens inflict it on themselves every day. I was no different. I couldn’t stop. I punished myself over and over again.”
“Do you like it better here?”
He looked up at the sky, where wispy clouds obscured the fingernail moon. “Yes, but it’s still torture. There are things I want here, too. Real things. But I can’t have them because of what I am.”
“A Guard.” This I understood. I felt the same way.
Jim pulled up short and poked my arm. “Check it out. Two blocks up.”
An ancient, enormous Cadillac pulled slowly up to the curb where a solitary woman leaned against a darkened storefront. As the car’s window rolled down, she pushed herself away from the wall and walked forward, wearing a lazy smile.
“Probably a prostitute,” I said quietly to Jim, already sniffing the air. “Crap. Do you smell that?”
The woman leaned against the door of the car, and a hand reached out from the open window and stroked her mane of curly blonde hair. Jim and I both broke into a jog at the same time.
“If they get her in that car, that’s the end of her,” I said.
“They won’t.” Jim sprinted ahead of me, his powerful legs carrying him up the street. But the driver of the car must have spotted him, because he gunned the engine and peeled out, nearly sideswiping an SUV, which honked long and loud.
Jim kept running, ducking his head to get a look in the vehicle, but he stopped as it blew through a busy intersection and sped away.
“What the hell are you doing?” shrieked the prostitute.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I approached her. “My friend thought that was someone he knew.”
She backed up several steps as I approached. I held up my hands, not wanting to freak her out. “Hey,” I said. “We don’t mean any harm.”
She snorted. By the look of her, she had a lot of years of experience with people more menacing than me. The Mazikin scent still hung in the air, so I said, “You smell that? That kind of incense smell? Don’t ever get in a car if you smell it. Warn your friends, too.”
The woman inhaled. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Captain—” Jim called out, eyeing the prostitute as he approached her from the other direction.
She whirled around to face him, and as she did, the breeze carried the overwhelming stench of body odor, perfume, and incense to me. “Pretty clever,” I said, drawing her attention back to me. “You nearly had that guy.” I pushed my hood away from my face.
Her eyes went wide, like maybe she recognized me.
Jim met my gaze, and I nodded. He stepped up right next to her. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said as she flinched in surprise. She’d been so fixated on me that she’d forgotten he was there. “Sorry I chased off your date. Can I make it up to you?”
The Mazikin’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Jim. A low hiss came from her mouth. Jim had one arm around her and a hand covering her mouth before she could make another sound. With abrupt and brutal efficiency, he hustled her into the adjacent alleyway. I looked around quickly, but no one seemed to have seen us. “Under control?” I asked the entwined dark shadows in the alley.
“Get the car,” Jim said.
I took off, both terrified and exhilarated. Finally, a Mazikin to interrogate, one who might be the key to helping us locate the nest. I reached my car, yanked the orange parking ticket from the windshield, and pulled onto the street, forcing myself not to speed as I drove the five blocks to where Jim was waiting with our prisoner. I pulled into the alley, rolling to a stop a few feet from Jim and the struggling blonde Mazikin. Jim’s expression was rigid and cold as he shoved her forward. He’d ripped her shirt and tied one of her sleeves over her mouth. His fingers were a bloody, mangled mess.
She’d bitten him. Our clock was ticking.
I popped the locks, and he wrenched the door open and pushed her inside, holding his injured hand over her mouth and using the other to hold her arms behind her back. “Malachi put some rope in my pack,” I said, reaching for it, thinking I would need to ask Raphael for some zip ties.
The Mazikin growled, the sound muffled by the fabric and Jim’s hand but no less creepy for it.
I leaned between the seats, the rope in my hand. “Hold her tight.”
Jim moved his hand from her mouth to further secure her arms, but the Mazikin bucked in his grip and lunged at me, slamming her forehead into mine. With my ears ringing and vision blurred, and Jim’s curses and the Mazikin’s screeches filling my head, I fell back against the steering wheel. Her hands were around my throat in the next instant, sharp fingernails di
gging in. The horn beeped as we struggled, sending the needle on my panic gauge into the red zone. We’d be lucky if someone didn’t call the cops.
The Mazikin jerked back as Jim got an arm around her waist, her stiletto heels narrowly missing my face as she kicked and clawed. I grabbed for her legs but couldn’t get a grip as Jim wrestled with her. He was trying to flip her over on her stomach, but now her hands were free, red claws slashing through the air. Jim grunted in pain as a few drops of blood splattered on the window next to his face.
“Control her!” I shouted.
“Trying!” He kicked her hard against the closed door as she threw herself back at him, a ball of animal fury. “Dammit!”
From beneath his shirt, he drew a knife.
He meant to threaten her, I had no doubt, but the Mazikin’s eyes lit up as the silhouette of the blade came into view. I opened my mouth to scream at him, to tell him to put it away, but it was too late.
The Mazikin flashed a surprisingly beautiful smile at me. And then she threw herself at Jim and impaled herself on his knife.
TWENTY-THREE
THE MAZIKIN GRUNTED AS the knife plunged in at an upward angle, just below her ribs. Jim shouted in surprise and jerked back, ripping it from her body in a way that probably did more damage than good. She gave a gurgling sigh and slumped over while blood poured over the backseat.
“Put pressure on that wound!” I shouted, turning around to start the car.
Jim felt for a pulse. “I think she’s dead. I’m sorry, Captain.”
I exhaled a sharp breath through my nose. Now we had a dead hooker in our car. Awesome. For a few seconds I debated dumping her, but the physical evidence … our skin was under her fingernails. Our fingerprints were all over her. And mine, at least, were on record. “Take off your sweatshirt and cover her,” I ordered. “Get her on the floor. We’re going back to the Guard house.”