Carry the Flame (38 page)

Cassie jerked backward, tripping on the stair behind her. She fell to her bottom, just missing the wire with her hip—the last thing she saw before the candle went out.

“William?” she said, wishing she could shout his name. “William?” Whimpers that brought no response.

The dragon's incessant pounding made her heart race.

Stand up.

She was dead if she didn't. At any second the snake could brush against the wire and set off the mines. Or it could be heading toward her now.

It was staring at me.

Fear of being buried alive with the snake brought Cassie to her feet. She tried to remember where the wire crossed her path, the big step she would have to take—the one that could spill her onto the horrifying snake. She was petrified it would whip around, wrap her tightly in its chilly grip, and eat her head first. That's what they did. Head first.

Terror of the snake, dragons, and land mines launched Cassie wildly into the blackness. In the eternal second before her foot could touch down, she felt a lacerating emptiness that could have been death for all its final desolation—and heard a moan erupt from the tortured shell of the joyous child she once had been.

Mom, Dad, Jenny, Maul.

T
he dragons were back in their pens, each lured by an arm of the slave who'd lost the race to open their gates. Jessie had turned from the man's butchering, delivered in full view of the appreciative crowd in the stands. Her tormentor watched so intently, he never noticed her looking away. The slave screamed but once. She hoped he'd been shocked into oblivion before he bled to death. She wished no less for herself.

Jessie's daughters, and Leisha and Kaisha, were hauled from the pit and lowered to the ground. X-ray unbuckled the harnesses. Blood covered every inch of the girls' legs and feet. Ananda and Bliss staggered when they walked, and held each other up.
They'll be together, at least for this.

Jessie gazed at the pit, where blood appeared in clear crimson lines, or smudged by the dragons, then raised her eyes to the gates and the men in the bleachers. Everything seemed surreal, as if she were no longer living her own life, but a horribly imagined one. She could make no rational sense of what she was witnessing in this glut of bricks and mortar in the Great American Desert, only that it had emerged from the devastation of her species and reflected that holocaust with harrowing fidelity.

She heard the Mayor speak. His words didn't register fully, but numb with terror she followed Burned Fingers down the ladder. Two swords stood upright in the sand. They looked medieval, and gave her no hope. Short of a rocket launcher, she would soon be dead, and Ananda and Bliss and the other children would be left to the desires of these abominable men.

The Mayor towered above them, holding a short torch in each hand, no doubt to better light the bloodletting.

“Put the slaves in place for our big fight,” he ordered with unfamiliar formality.

Guards once again lowered roped-up unfortunates to the front of the gates.

“Show our female gladiator how you will count down,” the Mayor commanded a guard with sparse facial hair.

Dutifully, the man spoke up: “Three hundred, 299, 298, 297—”

“Stop,” the Mayor interrupted, directing his attention back to Jessie. “If you are still fighting when he gets to zero, Ananda will live. But if one of my dragons gets to you first, the last thing you will see will be me throwing your little girl into the pit. Just five minutes saves her life.” He smiled at Ananda, who looked shocked. “If a mother cannot save a girl's life, what good is she?” Then he shook his head at Bliss. “I am sorry to say that nothing can save a porn queen's life. But Catch the Queen is very much fun for my guards, and life is difficult for them.”

Jessie hefted the weighty sword, wishing she had the strength to throw it through him. That was what she wanted for her dying vision.

The Mayor turned to the bleachers. “Men, place your bets on who will win: Jessie and Ellison, or Chunga and Tonga?” He laughed heartily. “So now that we have had our good joke, bet the times each will survive. Will they last to two hundred fifty? Two hundred?
One
hundred?” he said incredulously. “You can bet the number of wounds they might give my pets, too, but I think a better bet is who will be eaten first. And do not forget the little one.” He waved at Ananda. “Will Jessie save her, or will my pets get an extra sweet treat tonight?”

Bliss raised her arms, smeared with blood, and thrust her middle fingers at the Mayor. A guard grabbed her. She pushed him away. He stumbled as she whirled back around and jabbed both fingers even higher, staring defiantly at the despot.

The Mayor whooped with delight, calling off the men who were seizing her.

“Oh, you will be a great porn queen. I can tell.”

“Fuck you,” Bliss said in a voice so steely that it startled Jessie, but it thrilled her, too. “Fuck every last one of you,” Bliss yelled, shoving her fingers at the men in the bleachers.

She darted to the pit and leaped. The Mayor glared at Bliss as she picked up the second sword. Then he ordered her out.

“I'd rather die,” Bliss said, placing her wrist on the weapon's sharp edge.

“She stays,” the Mayor announced, as if it were suddenly his idea. When the tormentor started to protest, the Mayor cut him off: “There are others. Take your pick. Take two. I like her down there.” His gaze returned to Bliss. “She may be a good fighter. And there is more to bet on.”

His words were met with cheers from the stands. The Mayor took a sword from a guard and tossed it into the pit so all three of them would be armed. Burned Fingers grabbed it.

Jessie edged over to Bliss, asking her softly, “What are you doing?”

“I'm changing the odds.”

“Not enough. We're all going to—”

“Die. I know. But I'm dying down here with you. Not up there with those fucking bastards.” Tears ran down Bliss's cheeks, the flames of her rage. Jessie couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her cry.

“Come here.” Jessie took her firstborn in her arms and held her as tightly as she'd hugged Ananda hours ago. With death so imminent, her life as a mother felt strangely complete.

She looked up at Ananda, gripped by a guard since her sister had jumped, and mouthed,
I'm sorry.

For everything,
Jessie added to herself.
For your rotten life. For the world. For the days and weeks to come.

Her youngest shouted, “I love you, Mom. I love you, Bliss.”

Jessie yelled back, “I love you, too.” Bliss tapped her heart and pointed to Ananda as strongly as she'd pointed her middle fingers at the Mayor.

While men finished their raucous betting, the Mayor threw his torches to Burned Fingers and Jessie. The marauder caught his, but she fumbled hers, almost singing her hand. It sizzled out on the sand.

“Grab it quick,” Burned Fingers said to her.

She picked up the torch, and he lit it with his. Then he gave it to Bliss.

“It'll keep the beasts away,” he said to her, “till it burns down. When that happens, throw it at them. Try to hit them in the face. Blind them. Whatever you can do.”

The handle of Jessie's torch already felt so hot she doubted she could hold it for more than a minute or two.

“Everybody get ready,” the Mayor bellowed. When the bleachers quieted, and he held the gaze of dozens of men, he yelled, “Open the gates!”

The roped-up slaves struggled furiously to slide the wooden bars aside. Jessie didn't believe in God. She didn't believe in heaven. But she did believe in hell.

Chunga exploded out first again, smashing the gate into the wall so hard he knocked the slave unconscious. The man hung limply from the rope, but the guards pulled him up unscathed. The lizard swung his long neck around, surveyed the pit, and bolted. He shunned the flames of the torchbearers for the slave who had just opened Tonga's pen and was climbing up the barrier, escaping with his limbs intact—for now.

Frustrated, the beast bugled. Then he turned and swept his thick tail over the blood-streaked sand. Tonga slammed open his gate, moving up alongside his brother. The two giant lizards separated then, without hesitation circling wide of their prey. Jessie guessed they had done this many times.

“Stay close,” Burned Fingers said. “Back-to-back.”

The three of them formed a tight circle. Then Jessie heard, “Two hundred eighty-seven, two hundred eighty-six . . .” and knew the countdown had begun. She didn't know about Burned Fingers, but she was sure that she and Bliss were fighting to save Ananda. She had told her girls many times that she loved them more than life itself. Now she wanted to show them the meaning of those words for as long as she could.

S
weat lines formed in the blood on Jester's face. He was so angry he could have killed her all over again. He grabbed the crappy derringer from her lifeless hand and almost threw it at the trailer wall, 'cause there sure weren't any other guns around there.
Arsenal? My ass.
He searched her for ammo. Didn't find any, and tossed aside the empty derringer.

But in the corner of his eye he spotted a dark patch on the floor toward the end of the trailer.

What the hell?
A wooden hatch cover lay closed before him. He opened it, worrying about a booby trap, but felt a wave of cool air instead.
Moist
air. Like you could drink it. He smiled when he spotted a ladder made of rope and bones. He was going to like this place, even if the reception so far hadn't been the best. Using up that last bullet was a crime. He'd never met anyone so selfish.

He tested the rope with his foot. Felt pretty damn strong. But before he started down, he heard an explosion. Kind of muffled. But a big one. Then two more.

Jester didn't know what they were for a few seconds, but then he heard the telltale signs and almost ran out of the trailer. A thunderstorm! Just the way people always said they sounded—like bricks tumbling in the sky.
Exactly.
Must be a lot of lightning 'cause those bricks were still a-tumbling.

He hated to miss a good thunderstorm, fat drops splashing on his parched skin. Enough to make a man run around naked hooting at the sky. But the wet air down below promised the sweetest rewards of all.

Chapter Eighteen

A
deafening rumble raced through the cavern. William grabbed the steel bars, trying to steady his arms and legs. His lone candle flickered as the ground itself seemed to run from the coming onslaught.

The teddy bear mines he'd just disarmed jiggled eerily, insentient creatures come brazenly to life. Only William's gaze remained fixed, staring in shock at the ceiling as the violent reverberations heralded a screeching rupture. He glimpsed a torch whirling through the air—a falling star in the belly of earthen blackness—then tried mightily to shield his head from rocks and dirt and bricks and mortar—and the ubiquitous bones that formed the crude rebar of the City of Shade.

He yelled Cassie's name, but glimpsed neither her slight shape nor heard her cries as rubble pelted him mercilessly and put out his candle. He could not even hear his own screams.

Where is she?

It was his last thought in the ruin of darkness. Tons of cavern ceiling collapsed the bars and slammed him to the ground, caging him forever in death.

A
fter the big black snake tripped the land mines, the reptile whipped around and wrapped Cassie in its monstrously powerful grip, pinning her arms to her sides, leaving only her head free. She shrieked from the crushing pressure, bulging eyes on the dark ceiling as it opened wide to a fiery show of cascading torches, tumbling flames that flashed on the creature's open mouth. The snake's gamy breath coated her face as it reared back its head to strike. The girl bent forward, trying to bury her features in the dark scaly skin. The serpent's forked tongue flicked the back of her neck as rock and dirt and sand pummeled the beast. It snapped at the assault, its thick body shielding Cassie from an initial deluge that surely would have killed her. Then it released her and tried to fight the ferocious, all-encompassing enemy.

Cassie rolled away blindly, sickened and nearly insane with terror. Rocks and bricks struck her back and dropped her to her knees. She rose and staggered away with her hands clamped on her head, veering from a ball of flame that landed by her side before seeing it was a torch. She snatched it up as a hollow voice echoed, “Run! Run!”

“Where?” she screamed, before realizing the distant command issued from the collapsing world above her, not the death-riddled confines of the catacombs.

She swept the torch through the air to try to find a familiar marker—the bent steel door or cracked stairwell—but saw only that the torrent of shattered ceiling had slowed. Then she lowered her stricken gaze and spotted a glint in a great creature's eyes, and saw at once that they weren't the snake's distinctive slit-shaped horrors. These were dark circles.

“Dragons,” she whispered, loathing the word, never again a fanciful wonder of childhood fantasy.

What she'd heard about the giant man-eating lizards frightened her as much as the snake, and she bolted in a direction that she hoped would take her to William. The Komodo would never fit through the bowed-out bars, but the torch illuminated so little of the destruction—and left her with so much fear—that she considered climbing the rubble up to the City of Shade. But the piles fell short of the gaping ceiling, and she knew little more than the cruelty of that dark realm with its fallen torches, ruled by men who'd imprisoned her friends and murdered Maul. She wanted to return to the river, the waterfall, the sun-splashed gardens, vivid memories that sparked her greatest worry: that she would never live long enough to see her Eden again because she was trapped forever in a cave-in with a dragon and a monstrous snake. Her fear worsened as the glinting eyes drew closer.

Stumbling away, petrified that she'd fall and the torch would go out, she came to a broad hill of dirt, sand, and stones. She scrambled up the gritty slope and slid down the other side, looking back quickly. The dragon's head loomed over the short crest, so close she could see his rough, wrinkled skin and forked tongue.

Cassie backed up, instinctively thrusting the flame out in front of her. It didn't stop the dragon's advance. The animal romped down the rubble, looking left and right, his hideous yellow tongue snapping in and out, a ravenous creature trying to find a way past a lone flame.

She gashed her foot on rebar, bleeding on broken concrete. It was painful, but she was grateful that she might be working her way out of the catacombs' scariest recesses. But with the Komodo trailing her relentlessly in the darkness—and a sudden avalanche of rocks that could block her retreat at any moment—the exit to the river felt miles away.

The beast moved closer, then lunged. His tongue grazed her pants. She brought the flame down, searing the dragon's moist flesh. It sizzled loudly and disappeared into the Komodo's mouth as Cassie, shaking, backed into a large rubble pile. She stabbed the torch once more at the dragon, and watched him move only his head aside, keeping his feet solidly planted. But when the creature shifted she had a chance to look behind her, and was startled by the daunting slope of dirt, boulders, and bricks.

In desperation, she risked raising the flame from the beast, and spied a small opening below the ceiling. She began backing up the slope, holding the torch out with one hand while using the other to steady herself. The Komodo watched her intently, then tracked her closely.

Hurrying, shaking worse than ever, Cassie reached the top with the dragon so near she was afraid he would claim her with a single lunge. She poked her legs into the opening—the unknown blackness and whatever it held—then wriggled the rest of her body through the breach, never shifting her gaze from the eyes that fed on her. She had to withdrew the torch to crawl backward over the bricks, then raised the flame again and saw the Komodo's thick head poking through the gap. He strained to break all the way through, powerful exertions that tumbled debris toward her. Not far above the beast, she spied a much wider hole in the ceiling, from which the rubble had formed.

Go up there,
she pleaded to the dragon silently, but he had eyes only for her.

Backing away once more, she spotted the steel bars bent to the ground, twisted like candle wax by huge slabs of stone.

Where's William?

Her harrowing question vaporized at the sight of the dragon methodically digging away the last of the stones and bricks blocking his massive shoulders. With little effort he muscled his upper body through the enlargement, forcing aside other ruins to accommodate his girth. In fraught seconds, the beast crouched above her, a gob of saliva dripping from his pebbly lips.

Then the Komodo started down after her, crunching the debris, hurried steps that sounded like the busy jaws of a voracious beast.

T
he land mines sent shock waves across the arena. A vicious shudder raced up Jessie's legs and shook her upper body, the sword and stubby torch vibrating visibly in her hands. She registered all of this with piercing clarity as Bliss hurled her torch into the mouth of Chunga, the larger Komodo, then slapped her singed hand on her pants. The beast flapped his jaws, and the short smoldering post fell out. Before the giant lizard reeled away, his mouth opened again, wider, like he was bellowing; but Jessie heard only the earth ripping open from the middle of the pit all the way to Tonga's pen, and watched the beast himself slip into the vast hole.

Stunned, she backed away. Support columns broke apart as easily as ancient urns, then the brittle roof crashed down in bucket-size chunks. She grabbed Bliss and dragged her to the pit wall, seeking the limited shelter she could find in the first seconds of devastation.

She still gripped her own tiny torch, enduring burns because she assumed that Chunga was rampaging somewhere in the darkness. Hard as she peered, she couldn't see the Komodo, and wondered if, like the other dragon, he had slipped away, too. But she did spot one of the torches that had fallen from the pit's perimeter, snuffed out by the sand. She quickly lit it with the short one still torturing her hand, then cast the agonizing flame into the pitch, hoping to spot a gun or rifle that might have fallen in the attack. She saw no weapon, but gunshots rang out above. Looking up, she spied the silhouettes of marauders and guards running past the few torches that remained upright. Not for long: even as she watched, they were uprooted by men frantic for light in the darkening chaos. A hail of bricks knocked a guard to the ground. His torch, so briefly held, fell to the pit and rolled into the hole, still ablaze.

Chunga's elongated head leaped from the darkness just feet from Jessie and Bliss, as if he had sniffed out the humans, the tips of his forked tongue testing the air inches from them. Bliss raised her sword, and Jessie stabbed at the creature with the torch.

Then they ran. But a clump of bricks broke apart on Bliss's back, halting her escape. She tried to stifle a scream as her mother hauled her toward Chunga's pen, thinking it might provide protection from the falling roof—and the rapacious dragon.

Burned Fingers shouted her name.

“Over here,” Jessie yelled back.

Like the Komodo, he sprang from the darkness, but from behind them near the wall—his appearance almost as shocking as the dragon's. Blood spilled from his scalp and streamed down his face. He wiped at it roughly, and jabbed at the beast with his sword.

“Let's get to the pen,” Jessie shouted.

“Right,” he agreed, as if he'd been working on the same plan.

She looked up as another rumbling sound erupted, this time from above. Enormous sections of roof peeled away and shattered randomly across the arena, revealing patches of stars in the night sky—heaven's bright incurious indifference to hell.

A twelve-foot length of bricks, mortar, and bones battered the sand inches from Chunga. The hunkering beast didn't shift his dogged eyes from his quarry, sloughing off smaller chunks as if they were raindrops.

When the dragon probed boldly with his tongue again, Burned Fingers sliced off a half foot of the yellowy organ. The lump of flesh fell soundlessly amidst the constant clatter of bricks. The beast opened and closed his mouth several times, as if pained and confused.

The three of them backed out of the pit into Chunga's pen, and Burned Fingers closed the gate. As he searched for a means to secure it, the Mayor jerked it open and slammed it just before Chunga banged against the wooden barrier. Before the Mayor could pivot toward them, Burned Fingers pressed the sword to his spine.

“Drop your gun or I'll cut right through you.”

“I think I have a decided advantage,” the Mayor replied coolly. But he had yet to turn around, and the hand holding the pistol remained by his side.

“I'll die fast, you'll die slowly. Probably eaten by one of your pets.”

The Mayor glanced at his gun. Burned Fingers pressed the sword hard enough to draw a spot of blood through the Mayor's faded blue shirt. Jessie looked from him to the marauder, who appeared intent on goring the tyrant.

The gun dropped to the sand. Jessie retrieved the chrome-plated Smith & Wesson .45 revolver, hammer cocked, and aimed it at the Mayor's head.

“See what else he's got,” she said.

Burned Fingers pulled a long shiny knife from a sheath hanging by the Mayor's hip. He used it to cut off the man's belt and tie his hands behind his back. Jessie felt unmitigated pleasure at seeing him so clearly at their mercy.

“Kill him,” Bliss said, raising her sword.

“No!” Jessie replied sharply. “Not yet.”

“How about you put your sword right on his belly when I turn him around,” Burned Fingers said to the girl, “and cut him wide open if he moves?” She nodded, and the marauder forced the Mayor to face them. “I'm searching the front of you head-to-toe,” he said. “She'll stick you, and her mom will shoot you.”

Chunga banged the gate again.

Burned Fingers patted down the Mayor thoroughly, handing his knife to Jessie. “Now, how does this lock from the inside?”

“It does not.” Incredibly, the Mayor chuckled. “And my dear Chunga has not learned to open doors, or even to knock politely,” he added in the same amused tone, as the Komodo banged the barrier once more. Then he turned serious: “So before we leave, we will have to open it to save his life.”

“Dream on, asshole,” Burned Fingers said.

Jessie thought the dragon might be figuring it out on his own. She noticed that the third time the creature banged the gate, it opened inches farther before smacking what sounded like Chunga's head, which the beast appeared to be using as a battering ram. And when the reptile repeated the pounding yet again, she watched the gate swing open more than a foot, wafting the creature's horrendous odor over them.

“You should let me lead you to safety,” the Mayor said, “and then we can talk about—”

“Why do you think you're still alive?” Burned Fingers interrupted, putting his knife to the man's throat. “Now turn around and show us how to get out of here. And if you give me any excuse, I'll saw your spine right out of your back.”

They hurried through the pen, the gate banging at longer intervals behind them. With the Mayor in front, they eased by the old rickety circus wagon, where the mauled young woman had been used as bait for the beast.

“You see, even if he gets past the gate, he will run into this,” the Mayor said, sounding pleased with himself. “But we should leave something tasty so he does not get any wicked ideas. He will expect his usual treat.”

“How about
your
arms this time? You like that idea?” Burned Fingers pushed him. “Keep moving.”

Jessie would have preferred to lop off the Mayor's head and toss it in the wagon.

The big man remained uncharacteristically mute as they edged into a wide tunnel that rose a foot higher than her head. Only their footsteps violated the quiet of the enclosed space, an unnerving hush after the violence and mayhem of the wrecked arena.

She pointed the Mayor's gleaming gun into the darkness, knowing that even though she looked like a hunter, the torch she also carried made them easy prey for anyone—or any
thing
—lurking in the blackest shadows.