Carry the Flame (27 page)

“Give me the demon, then. I will take the demon back.”

“You do not listen, Hunt. You will take a boy. And why do you call two fine African girls a demon? You are a sad man, Hunt, to say such a wicked thing. I slept with them last night.” Esau saw his master startle. “That is right, in the same bed with all the other girls, and look at me.” The Mayor tapped his head with both hands. “No horns. Imagine such a thing. So do not call those fine African girls a demon. You are a gullible man, if you believe such tripe. Now, I tell you, go. Leave. I will have a boy brought to your motorcycle. You like boys. I have heard.”

T
he guards shoved Jessie and Burned Fingers into a cell that shared a wall with a much larger brick chamber imprisoning upward of twenty horribly gouged women. Snarls and whimpers rose from their midst. Jessie thought they ranged in age from mid-teens to mid-twenties.

Thick human bones formed a barred window in the common wall. Femurs, Jessie recognized. She peered past them, unsure whether she could see all of the women without moving closer and calling attention to herself. What she did glean looked nightmarish. Several women lay unmoving on the bloodstained floor. Two looked recently slain, with deep bite marks, including half a dozen on each of their faces. Chunks of tissue had been torn away, along with all of their clothes. One had no eyes.

A number of women caught Jessie looking. They stared back at her, gazes jittery and wild with apprehension or anger. They were tortured by Wicca—limbs, torsos, and faces uniformly red with cuts, blood, and scabs. A few spoke gibberish; one responded nonsensically, then turned her burning eyes to the newcomers next door. But most wandered about without any apparent purpose or pattern, bumping into one another, shouting and striking out at their cell mates.

Two women and a slightly built teenager rushed the window. Each of them had infected bites on their faces and necks. Half the teen's ear had been torn off, leaving another suppurating wound. She reached between the bones with a broken arm, straining to try to touch Jessie, who reared back, fearing the disease. But she was still close enough to see that the fracture had driven a spike of shattered ulna through the girl's skin. Dark blood crusted the opening.

“Fix it!” the young woman demanded. “You broke it, you fix it!”

“I didn't break it,” Jessie said after she thought the girl had calmed. “I just got here.”

“She broke it,” another teen declared. Jessie spotted a white glint on the young woman's bloody forehead, and realized it was expressed skull. “I saw her, too.”

They howled together and tried to yank the bone bars free. Burned Fingers crouched. He looked ready to fight, whispering to Jessie, “Don't let them break your skin.”

But they're biters, was all she could think at seeing the ravages of the disease after all these years.

“Wait!” screeched a woman with numerous facial wounds. “Wait,” she repeated, this time eerily. She clawed her face, scraping thick scabs from her nose. She paid the gore little mind, wiping off her hands on her filthy shorts. “She's bigger than the one that broke your arm.” She peered at Jessie. “Did you get bigger?”

Bliss, Jessie thought immediately. But she warned herself to sound disinterested. “Did you see where they took the girl,” she hesitated, “who broke that one's arm?”

“Section R.”

The response set off an eruption. Women stomped their feet and shouted senseless profanities. Three of them jumped a wire-haired teen next to them, pummeling her viciously. A girl no older than fifteen bit her own hand, tearing off a fat mouthful of palm. She chewed it and smiled at Jessie. Her chipped teeth were the pale pink of her gums, lending the latter a bizarre, elongated appearance. Blood flooded from her lips and quickly dripped from her chin. She held her mangled hand through the bars, as if to share it. Jessie backed away.

“We all go to Section R,” yelled the woman who'd casually clawed her own face. ”And some of us come back here. You, too.”

“She's too old,” said the younger one with the broken arm.

“Where's Section R?” Jessie managed to ask.

“Down there,” the broken-armed girl shouted. “Down there, and then you go inside.” She stared intently at Jessie. “So it was your girlie who broke my arm.” Jessie didn't reply.

“She's coming back here,” singsonged the girl who'd clawed her face.

“Maybe not,” shouted the younger girl, holding her bloody arm. “She could be a porn—”

Her face exploded against the bone bars. A big, older woman grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and drove the girl's broken, bleeding features into the bones a second time. The wall shook. Then the assailant slammed the teen's face down onto the brick ledge of the barred window, spilling teeth. The two women who had been by the girl's side dragged her away. A fight broke out as others tried to eat her.

The assailant rushed to the nearest wall, screamed, “Why?” and smashed her face against the bricks with such unbridled fury that her legs folded. She fell heavily to the floor, cracking her skull on the concrete with an audible thud.

Weeping, Jessie turned to Burned Fingers. He took her hand and held her close.

E
sau squatted in the shade of the building, the Harley parked only feet away. He'd helped Hunt clear the cage of anything that could be used as a weapon, including most of the bike tools. They stuffed screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and assorted coils and bolts and chain links into an old leather saddlebag, leaving space for the boy next to food, water, and gas.

Hunt leaned against a brick column, paring his fingernails with a pocketknife. He never let them get long and sharp, which Esau honored when they were alone.

“If the boy touches any of it,” his master eyed the provisions, “I'll have to punish him.”

Hunt sounded unsteady, maybe excited, and Esau remembered the Mayor's words to his master: “You like boys. I have heard.” The slave had always suspected as much, but Hunt had him for company now. He didn't need boys.

Then Hunt said, “True Belief.” Just those two words. They could have been a pronouncement of faith, a declaration from on high, reverence of the first order. But the slave knew better. His master's voice cracked, as if the unsteadiness Esau had just detected was a seam splitting open to reveal a side of Hunt so dark, so dense, that the slave would never see beyond the simple rupture. It scared him. But it also sent a sharp thrill down his own spine. The three of them would be alone in the desert. The possibilities infected his feelings, the way unbidden thoughts of unspoken sex can strip a good man of decency—and fill him with the most ruthless desire.

Hunt put away his pocketknife. Esau's eyes fell to ants marching single file into the shade, their brittle black bodies disappearing into deeper shadows. Thousands more stretched into the distance, a dark line in the burning sand.

He and Hunt had been waiting almost an hour. Esau wanted to leave, but not to go back to the Alliance. The thought of His Piety touching him made the slave want to pull out the knife Hunt had given him and kill for the first time. He couldn't even force himself to beg the Lord's forgiveness, only for the chance to sleep under the stars with Hunt. Touch under the stars. Never stop under the stars.

With the boy, too. Don't forget him.

Esau rose to his feet, so restless he couldn't stop his fevered imaginings until his thoughts returned of their own accord to the Alliance. He knew that once he passed back under the shadow of the giant cross—the crucified Christ of cannon barrels and tank treads and bazookas—he might never leave the base again. How much would His Piety care about a slave's freedom—if he cared at all—with the survival of the Alliance at risk? How much would Hunt care? Bad news was never good for freedom. Anyone could see that.

A struggle broke out behind them. Esau turned and saw two guards dragging a sandy-haired boy from the shadows. The white guard had a burn tattoo of a bullet in the cleft of his chin. It was framed by his black beard.

The slave watched his master smile, but the kid was staring at Hunt and trying frantically to back away. He screamed and tried to kick Hunt when he walked up. Hunt choked him till he stopped struggling.

The youth, ragged in chopped-off pants, gagged convulsively.

“Put him in the cage,” Hunt ordered the guards.

Instead, they pushed the boy into Hunt, and the guard with the burn tattoo yelled, “Fuck you, you goddamn freak.” They backed into the shadows.

Hunt reddened, but held the boy. Esau was stirred by the kid's handsomeness. He looked strong, and even though he was young, no more than fifteen, he already had a perfect V-shaped torso. Perfect teeth, too, and full lips.

Hunt forced him into the cage and locked the door.

“Look at me,” Hunt said to his prisoner, who stared at the ground. Hunt shook the cage hard enough to raise the boy's eyes in terror. “I don't care how thirsty you get, or how hungry, you don't touch anything in there. You do that, and I'll hurt you. Do you remember what that means? The godliness that sets wrong to right?”

The boy looked too scared to answer, but when Hunt reached into the cage, the kid yelled, “Yes!”

Hunt rested his arm on the bar. His hand, hanging inches from the boy's face, pointed to him. “I remember, too.”

Hunt climbed on the Harley. Esau sat behind him. They gained speed quickly, racing across the long black line of ants. The slave reached around his master, holding him at last. He felt Hunt trembling, his powerful body as unsteady as his voice had been. Hunt's excitement made him shudder, too.

“What's his name?” the slave asked.

“Tell him your name,” his master shouted over the engine noise. When the kid didn't answer, Hunt braked.

“Jaya!” the boy yelled.

“Not here,” Esau said as the bike idled. He whispered in Hunt's ear, letting his lips brush his master's lobe. “Tonight. Under the stars.”

Chapter Fourteen

S
unshine spilled through a wide opening in the cavern ceiling, tracked across smooth stone and gawky boulders, and within the hour found Cassie curled-up in a gray blanket on a bed of white sand. The girl welcomed the warmth for the first time in memory. During the night a chill had settled on the cavern floor, just as the woman named Sam had warned, and the sun's arrival added a somnolent layer of comfort. Cassie had slept deeply, blissfully void of dreams.

With a luxurious feeling of rest flooding her limbs, she remembered the long dark climb down the rope ladder, and Sam and Yurgen leading her to the river. She sat up and saw the couple's empty blanket about fifteen feet away. But their absence didn't alarm her. The cavern felt secure, and as she yawned her eyes settled on the colorful spirals she'd only glimpsed last night. In daylight, the rose, yellow, and buff bands of stone were astonishing to see, like swirling galaxies from the night sky rising to the circular gap where the sun poured in a good hundred feet above her. It looked as though water had once defeated the laws of gravity to drain upward, leaving behind these wondrous, mystifying whorls.

I want to stay here,
she said to herself. She'd lost her mom, dad, sister Jenny, and Maul. She did not want to lose the stunning world beneath the desert.

But when Cassie stood and gazed at the dark slope she'd crossed last night, she also found it all too easy to imagine a killer climbing down the unseen ladder and crawling out of the shadows.
That's not going to happen,
she assured herself quickly, forcing her eyes back to the sunshine.

The cavern was larger than any enclosed space she'd ever seen. Maybe bigger than a stadium in the long ago, where she'd heard that people saw concerts and games. That sounded like fun,
fun!
But men in her old camp said there weren't even enough people left on earth to fill a stadium now.

Murmurs alerted her to a group huddled around a small cook stove. She couldn't make out their faces clearly, but a woman waved. Cassie waved back and tidied her blanket before starting toward the strangers. Whatever they were cooking smelled good, and as she drew closer, two dark-haired girls eyed her appraisingly. They were older, around twelve, and looked clean. So did their clothes. Cassie glanced down, feeling shabby and shy, and headed toward the woman who had waved. Her dark hair was cut short, like Yurgen's, and she also wore a clean shirt and pants.

“Are you hungry?” the woman asked her with a wide smile. Her face was round and full, like she got to eat every day. All of them looked healthy.

“Yes, please.” Cassie's stomach felt as hollow as the cavern.

“I'll have this ready in a minute. I'm Helena.” She paused from stirring a dented pot to shake Cassie's hand. Helena's fingers felt hot. Then she turned to the girls. “Come over here, you two, and introduce yourselves.”

The one with a ponytail stepped forward. “I'm Miranda.” Except for her longer hair, she looked like Helena. “What's your name?”

Cassie told her, feeling even shyer talking to her.

“This is Steph,” Miranda said. “She just learned to swim yesterday. Can you swim?” Cassie shook her head. “Want me to teach you?”

“Let her eat first, child,” Helena said, lifting the pot from the stove, which was built from stones and metal rails, and blackened from use. A rusty screen, resting horizontally on four wooden supports, perched above it.

“What's that for?” Cassie asked.

“It spreads out the smoke,” Helena said as she scooped a mix of greens and meat into a scaly, blue plastic bowl for Cassie. “We cook with just a tiny bit of coal. It keeps the smoke down, and that way it disappears before it goes up there.” She eyed the opening. “We don't want anyone knowing we're down here. Miranda, get your bowl. You, too, Steph.”

Miranda led Cassie to a natural stone bench, making her feel welcome. Swinging her feet back and forth, she ate the tastiest food of her life with her fingers, like the older girls. The piquant greens were so flavorful she thought they must have come straight from a garden, and she discovered numerous chunks of meat. She held one up. “Snake?” she asked.

“And nothing but,” Miranda said, making big comical eyes. “We raise them for eating, so don't go making them your pets.”

“Snakes? For pets?” It sounded ghastly to Cassie.

“I knew a girl once who liked to pet them,” Miranda said. “But she died. Not from a snake,” she added quickly. “I like dogs, but we haven't had one for a long time. Do you have one?”

“How'd she die then?” Cassie asked.

“She got caught by some guys and they killed her after doing some things. So do you have a dog?”

“No, but there were two on the caravan. One only had three legs. A marauder chopped it off.”

“How'd that happen?” Miranda asked.

“They were attacked. It was before they got to the Army of God, where I was.” Cassie told them about the big battle to get out of the Army's fortress, and how an older guy burned down walls, crops—“everything, even a bear cage”—with a rocket attack on a fuel supply. “We thought we were all going to die.”

“Was the bear in it?” Miranda asked. Steph still hadn't said a word.

“No, it got away.”

Helena walked over with the pot. “Would you like some more?” she asked Cassie, who looked at Miranda.

“Go ahead,” the older girl urged. “You look like you could use it,” she added earnestly.

“Sure,” Cassie said to Helena. “Thanks. It's really good.”

“I'm okay, Mom.” Miranda put her hand over her bowl. So did Steph.

Cassie warned herself to stop gobbling her food. By the time she finished, she figured she was “sport eating.” That's what her mom said people did in the long ago—stuffed themselves for the fun of it. It sounded so bizarre that she'd wondered if her mother had made it up. Now, she guessed her mom hadn't.

“Are you sure you got enough?” Miranda asked Steph, who nodded immediately. She was about Miranda's height, but looked like a young woman because she had breasts. With her long black hair and bright blue eyes, Steph was the prettiest girl Cassie had ever seen.

“She doesn't talk,” Miranda said to her. “But that's okay. She's real nice.”

“Is her tongue all right?” Cassie asked. Callabra didn't try to say much, but her tongue had been cut off by a priest at the Army of God.

“It's not that.” Miranda put her arm around her friend. “We found her about six months ago after her people were attacked. Kind of like you. Except something happened to her.” She gently hugged Steph. “Right?” The girl didn't respond. “We figure she'll tell us sooner or later. Or maybe not.”

Steph rested her head on Miranda's shoulder. Cassie wanted to do that, too. Miranda already felt like a big sister, caring and comforting. Then she remembered Jenny and struggled not to cry because she didn't want to explain why sometimes she burst into tears.

Helena strolled over and took their bowls. “We'll have you cleaning up after yourself soon enough,” she said to Cassie, “but this morning I think you should let these two hooligans show you around.” She rubbed Miranda's head. The girl frowned and straightened her ponytail. “Just be sure you have Cassie back here when you can see the sun up there.” Helena glanced toward the opening. “We're having a meeting, and we want you guys there. On time! Now go,” she said, and laughed.

“How big is this place?” Cassie asked Miranda as they headed out on the broad, delta-shaped expanse.

“Where you came down the ladder,” Miranda glanced over her shoulder at the shadows, “that's just the start. This goes on for hundreds of miles. It stops at what used to be Lake Michigan. Only a few people have explored the whole thing. It's a bunch of caverns and tunnels and
pools.
” She smiled. “There's even a waterfall, but I don't know if we'll have enough time to get you there and back. It has a really deep plunge pool, so you can't go in till you learn to swim.”

“Can I learn today?” Cassie had heard of waterfalls, but nobody she knew had ever seen one.

“Today? I don't know. Depends on how you feel about dunking. Sometimes that scares people. I might be able to teach you underwater swimming, if you don't panic, but you've probably never seen a lot of water.”

“The Gulf,” Cassie said.

“What's that?”

“The Gulf of Mexico. People got sick if they went in, and they died if they drank it. Sometimes they drank it,” she said slowly, “so they
could
die.”

“That's not like here,” Miranda said. “People drink water 'cause it's good.”

She skipped away still holding Steph's hand, and didn't stop till they crossed the smooth stone to the river. The water sparkled in sunlight reflecting off the rocks, and looked even more magnificent than Cassie had imagined from her glimpses the night before. It was at least twenty feet wide there, and she thought it might not be too deep.

Miranda stripped off her clothes. Steph sat on a boulder and pulled her knees up to her chin. They poked through her jeans, threadbare and holey.

“She won't take off her clothes or go in the water, except with me. You can wear your clothes, or not. Clothing optional.” Miranda laughed.

“Are there boys?” Cassie asked.

“Four, but this is the girl's area.” Miranda folded her pants and shirt, arranging them in a neat pile. “If you take them off, make sure you keep them by the bank, so you can wash them. They kind of need it.”

The water rose to Miranda's belly, but came all the way up to Cassie's chest, reminding her why everyone on the caravan called her “Little Cassie.” She couldn't wait to show her friends this place.

But the cool water felt so foreign that she climbed onto the rock she'd just stepped from to make sure she could get out. Then she lowered herself back in.

“You okay?” Miranda asked.

Cassie nodded. “This is
nice.
” She splashed water with both hands. “I just can't believe it.”

The other girl took a breath and disappeared. Cassie thought she must be dunking. Seconds later, she jumped up with a grin.

“Try it!”

Cassie lowered herself to her chin, then hesitated. The current was slow, and felt like a gentle breath blowing over her body.

“It's easier if you do it all at once,” Miranda advised.

“Okay-okay, I'm going to do it,” she said, both scared and excited.

She thought she would come right back up, but the water felt so soothing, so otherworldly, that she stayed under with her eyes shut, letting the flow caress her face. It was as if she'd discovered more than the secret realm below the surface—she'd discovered the real feel of her own skin. After coming from such parched environs, to find herself in water's full, weightless grasp made her deliriously happy. Like a great dream. She burst back up, out of breath. Full of wonder.

“That's incredible,” she sputtered. “How did you guys find this place?”

Miranda shrugged. “I'm not sure. Somebody found it after the Big Flood. You can really hold your breath. You had me worried.”

“What big flood?” Cassie asked warily. “You mean that stuff about Noah?” She hoped not. Religious crazies had tried to kill her.

“No! Not
that,
” the older girl said. “I meant after the earthquakes. The land got so much lighter with water burning up into the air, and then it started moving around and a monster earthquake hit. It split Lake Michigan right down the middle, and all the water came pouring out. It was the biggest flood in a million years, or something like that, and it made a huge canyon, and these caverns got really big. See up there.” She pointed to the opening. “This whole thing got filled up with water going round and round like a giant whirlpool till it shot out of the ground. That's what they think anyway.”

“Water did that?”

“You bet! Just like this.” She splashed Cassie and dunked again. Cassie dunked, too, and opened her eyes underwater for the first time. Miranda looked blurry. So did the river bank, though it was just a few feet away. She surfaced, grabbed another breath, and went back down so she could see the bottom, where long green strands drifted in the current. That's when she realized her feet weren't on rock or sand, but on soft, squishy dirt.

“What's growing down there?” she asked Miranda.

“River grass, but you can't eat it, so don't get any ideas. We use the silt in our garden. You want to try swimming underwater? You seem okay with dunking.” Cassie nodded eagerly. “So when I go under,” Miranda said, “just stand there and watch me. I'm going to do this.” She feigned a breast stroke. “At the same time, I'm going to move my legs. But I'll just have to show you. Ready?”

“Sure.”

Miranda dove forward, and with each stroke of her arms she also drew her heels toward the back of her thighs and straightened her legs with a strong thrust. After about ten seconds, she surfaced upriver. “Think you can do it? This is a good place to try 'cause it's shallow.”

Cassie took a breath and lowered herself, thrilled when she moved through the water. She made it almost to the far side before she got scared. She stood then, took another breath, and swam back underwater to Miranda as fast as she could. The other bank frightened her. It curved up into the massive rock wall that arched over the river, and felt too close, like it might drop down any second and she wouldn't get air. She told herself that was crazy, but was afraid anyway.

“That's really good,” Miranda said. “Now do it again, but try coming up for air without standing, and then see if you can swim some more.”

Cassie headed upriver this time. She failed in her first two attempts to get air without letting her feet touch bottom, but when she headed back toward the other girl, she surfaced, went back down, and managed to swim a few more feet.