Day Boy (18 page)

There were protocols.

And when the engines fail, there is always the soldiers. Men and women (yes, the
women fought too, don't be so shocked). Bodies to hurl against the dark frenzy of
a world given over to change.

And there he was, in those trenches. He fought with the
best of them. He saved many
lives, before he was swayed, before he started taking them. Says there's a certain
heroism in giving in. Sobel was always too big for the resistance. He fought when
it could fit him, and when it couldn't anymore, he shed it like a skin. Oh, they
say there was none like him.

Weren't no cages then, just the open spaces of the battlefield and a quick shifting
of loyalties, a following of new imperatives. You know how it is. When he became…what
he is, he returned to the HQ.

Gave his final briefing. That's what he did: and it was written in their blood.

There was no resistance after that, in truth there scarcely was before.

Soldiers finish things that they never get to start. He knew that, he has that deepest
in him, that finishing drive.

Sobel was a soldier. And he finished them.

And now he is here.

Some soldiers are let to pasture because they deserve it. Some soldiers are let to
pasture because they are feared.

You can decide which my Master was.

CHAPTER
25

DAIN'S LEFT ME a note.
Certain has need of you.

Certain's farm is just out of town, down past the river and over Handly Bridge. I
cross that thinking of Anne. She'd be in school, I guess. I been there once—on Master's
business—looks to be a boring place, all that laying of pencil to paper, all those
maps. I prefer Dain's telling of the world. He says, I get to see it as it is, that
the school's story isn't right. Blinkered, is the way he puts it.

Certain's pottering in his shed when I reach it. Petri runs out to greet me, barking
until I scratch her between the ears.

He comes out of that shed, favouring his good leg, and wiping dirt from his face.
‘You ready to work hard?'

I nod, and he smiles. ‘Well, you think you are.'

And that's what we do beneath that autumn Sun, and there's no let-up in neither.
There's fences need fixing to keep out the deer and the roos, cattle to tend, and
Certain teaches me patiently. He's gentle with the beasts when he needs to be,
firm
when that's needed too, and Petri's always there, alert.

‘You get a good dog,' Certain says, ‘And the world runs easier. First few years,
when I tried my hand at this, I tried it alone, and I tried it awful.' He wipes his
face with his sleeve; gives me a long look and it's judgmental and generous at once.
‘It's a hard thing, leaving them. A lot don't make it. A lot feel the guilt, or the
power lacking behind them, and it makes them cruel. Or weird, and those don't last
long, they walk out of town and they never come back. Some fear the night. Lie in
bed waiting, and it's worse for them, because they've never known just what that's
like.'

‘What about you?'

Certain gestures at the land about us. ‘I work my acres, I live as good a life as
I can, and I feel all that stuff too, but I try to forget it. Put the past where
it belongs.'

He shows me how to fix a fence, how to put the posts in true and return tension to
a wire.

And we talk of simple things, not the Council or the Masters, not my other Day Boys,
but ordinary town gossip. Certain's got his heart set on Mary, I can see it, the
way he talks of her. I don't talk about Anne, but he manages to make me blush when
he mentions her and I know I don't need to.

Not just the town we talk about, but the land. It's got its severities, but it can
give up splendours. The north field's black earth, nearly dark as my fingers, is
fertile and good for growing wheat. The southern field's red earth, clay and hard
working, needs constant correction; we're at it with gypsum to break it down a bit.
He's got a few head of cattle, a couple dozen sheep. And all of them demand different
things depending on the time of the year.

Most of the time, though, we work in silence: and it's comfortable. There's no need
to fill it with myself. There's no need for boasts or anger. The work is its own
talk. And I like it.

‘You could come work with me,' he says at last, when we're packing up. ‘Dain says
he can clear it with the Council. I can spare you a lot of the big mistakes.' He
grimaces. ‘And the drink, too.'

I feel my belly drop. ‘I guess this means Dain's made up his mind,' I say. ‘About
me.'

Certain sighs. ‘Dain'll change his resolution a half-dozen times between now and
then. It's no gift, what he'd give you is pain—you seen them cages didn't you, boy?
In the belly of the mountain. I saw them once myself. It's slow and it's painful,
for those chosen ones, and not all of them that enter come out right.

‘There was a madness to those first ones, and they've contained it somewhat, but
it's still there. Think long upon it, if you're ever offered that. I seen it, what
it can do, a mate of mine—Day Boy like you are, and I was—he got the Change, grabbed
it with both hands and all, and it drove him to such madness that they had to put
him down like a dog.' Certain scratches Petri's head. ‘But not before he came back
into town, all rolling eyes and screams, strong with the blood and the hunger. Took
three of them to hold him down.

‘I was there when he died in his cage, watching as the Sun split the horizon. He
didn't scream, he laughed, he caught my eye and he laughed, and flesh burned from
his bones, and he laughed.'

Certain shakes his head: takes a long draught of his water.

‘Why'd he come back?'

‘We'd been mates. Close. He'd wanted to share. Them Masters are sentimental folk.
Drink your drink, boy, you've a long ride home.' He scratches his head, and for a
moment he isn't staring at his land, but some moment long past and painful. He takes
a breath, and smiles at me, eyes crinkling. ‘You think about it. My offer.'

‘I will,' I say. I drink the last of that cider and get on my bike.

I'll think on it, but there's a while to go yet.

I take a detour. Ride to the edge of town, where the road turns ragged, boiling with
grass, all rising crusts of tar and concrete, and the old signs sag and sing in the
wind.
You're Leaving Midfield
, says one.

I wonder what that might be like, to leave and not come back.

There's plenty out there, towns and the like, and other cities (maybe) but there's
haunts and ghouls too, and cold children, and all sorts of damned things. I shiver
a little, then I turn my bike around and ride back into town and take the longest
streets home.

Said I'd think about it, but I already have an answer.

CHAPTER
26

I DREAM OF the city and it's burning. I dream of the Red City and I'm running down
those ruddy narrow streets: the drunken Hunter behind me. I come to the door of them
lost boys, and I bang a fist hard against it. Grainer opens it but he doesn't let
me pass—there's a light in his eye. I try to push through, and he slaps me to the
ground.

‘We're all burning tonight,' he says, and I can feel the heat on my back. Sweat stings
my eyes. ‘You best come tomorrow when we're all dead.'

Door shuts.

And I turn to face my Hunter, and there's nothing there.

‘Gotcha,' the dark says, and there's a knife in my chest, stuck and unmoving and
all I am is the dying.

I wake with a yell, scrambling up against the bedhead, cracking the back of my skull
against the wall.

‘Nightmare?' Dain asks. He's standing over my bed, hand reached out to my face.

Well, that doesn't help! Lucky I don't tend to a weak bladder. I sit up. Nod. To
some the nightmare would start now with a Master waking them. They only wake when
they want to scare or if they're polite and enjoy conversation, like Dain. They feed
mostly without anyone ever knowing. Fast and silent, in and out.

‘You been having bad dreams a lot lately,' he says.

I don't bother lying, just nod.

‘I remember what it was like to have bad dreams, and good ones.'

‘You ever miss them?' I ask. My back's prickly with sweat. Dain's sat at the foot
of my bed.

‘No. No, I don't.' He stands, lips part grinnish. ‘It's good you're awake, means
I don't have to wake you.'

I look to the window, can't be later than 2 am. Might not even be midnight for all
I know. ‘What needs doing?'

‘There's a lost girl.'

Anne.

Dain sees; shakes his head. ‘No, not Anne. It's the Dalton girl.'

‘Sally?'

‘Yes, Sally. She is missing.'

I look at him hard, and he shakes his head again. ‘No, no. It is not one of ours.
We do not hide what we do. This is our town, we are its Masters. People do not lose
themselves without our permission.'

‘Then where is she?'

‘I don't know.' Dain stands. ‘Get dressed, and be out the front in five minutes.'

I dress as fast as I can, socks mismatched, and am still
sleep-eyed and blinking
when we leave the house. Dain doesn't run ahead or disappear but walks by my side.
And I've a memory of a cold hand closed around mine, a handkerchief dabbing at my
snotty nose, and the tears that filled my eyes.

Been a while since we walked together. Be quite pleasant weren't a girl gone missing
now.

The moon's rising and the sky's streaked with clouds. I can smell smoke greasy with
wet wood. There's lit torches everywhere, working their way through the dark. And
I wonder why we were so late on the scene.

‘Thought she'd be found by now,' Dain says. ‘Kids have a habit of running out, once
or twice. But I was wrong. There's something not right here.'

The whole town is up and in the square, and to one side are the Day Boys and their
Masters. Sobel glares at me, but it's more a matter of habit than true ire. The rest
don't even spare me a glance.

Dougie gives me a little bow and Sobel clips his head. Grove grins and Egan whispers
something in his ear; the smile dies on the vine of his lips.

There's a tension here, and something that borders on anger.

It's Dain that walks to the middle of the square. He raises his hands and all chatter
stops.

‘We're to take the east and the south sides of the town,' he says. ‘There's plenty
enough people in the woods.'

Like there can ever be enough people in a search. How much space does a young girl
take up? How easy would it be to miss her? To walk by whether she's hiding, or dead
still?

Far too easy, of course.

‘Where do you want me looking?' I ask Dain.

‘Under the houses, down Esbeth Street, across to Main.'

That's eight blocks, but I can do it. He passes me a hurricane lamp.

And it should be some sort of magical night with that moon and those clouds and the
whole town out, like a fairy carnival, but it's loud and desperate, and we search
the town, and I hope it's just Sally walked off in a huff somewhere. But from the
look of her parents, both quiet, eyes wide, I know that's not so. This isn't a running,
but a snatching and stealing. Another rogue Hunter maybe, though why they'd take
a girl instead of one of us boys don't make no sense.

The air's smoky with lit torches.

And a wind comes up and it's another hint of autumn's failing, like the borders of
some ancient empire's been ceded up, and the troops are falling back to the next
stronghold, sliding up north, sorrowful but no less certain in their march.

I scramble under house after house, calling her out. And I don't find nothing but
growling dogs, and cats, and dust, and more spiders than I can bear. But I keep looking,
covered in web by the time I'm done.

Just walking back to the centre of town, night growing later. When I hear the call.
And I start running.

Sometimes the stories don't work out like you want them to. I never found Sally Dalton.
That was Dougie, and he wailed into the night, and came back with eyes wide, and
he didn't say how she looked, and I never wanted to know. I could see the raw of
it in his eyes, and that was too much.

World's an awful cruel place.

I see Anne held tight in Mary's arms, and Mary—laughing mocking Mary—glares at me
when I come close.

So I walk home, alone, and Dain is waiting for me in the kitchen, already a cup of
tea there, steaming, and I fold my hands around it.

‘Nothing we could have done,' he says.

‘And who did this?'

‘The trail leads into the wilderness. If they're half bright they're already miles
away from here. Doesn't matter. We'll find them. Justice will be done.'

‘Justice won't do much for Sally.'

Dain sighs. ‘No, it won't. Sometimes all we have is the strength to make sure something
doesn't happen again. And even then…Mark, this is a cruel world, it's always been
that way, and it is all too quick and casual to remind us of that. There's storms
and fire and flood, and the hungers of the mad. And this thing is rare, has always
been rare, but it is even rarer now. We protect our own, even if that isn't enough.
He will be brought to justice.'

And I leave it at that.

Two days later a man's body is left in the square, arms bound with wire, throat cut.
No one I know, no one the town knows. Don't look like evil. Just looks dead.

Dougie and me, we poke it with a stick on a dare. But there's not a hint of pleasure
in it. The body just lies there. And we're left standing like fools, or worse, like
we've done something that mocks Sally. And I know she was sweet on me. That she
didn't deserve such a death.