Dust City (21 page)

Skinner raises his eyebrows.

“We even know about the fairies. Up in Eden.”

For the first time, Skinner loses his composure. His face goes pale.

“It’s true isn’t it?”

He smiles and his color returns. “I must say, you’ve certainly uncovered a great deal. I can see now you’re a tad swifter than your father ever was.” He toys with the fabric of his glove. “I wonder if there’s anyone who would believe you. I frankly doubt it, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to find out.”

He steps into the room to allow enough space for his bodyguards, the two twin goblins, to enter.

“I’m sure you remember my friends, Adler and Baldwin.”

“Henry . . .” Fiona grabs my arm and in tandem we take a step backward.

“Don’t worry,” says Skinner. He’s grinning like a fool. “The procedure is almost completely painless.” He chuckles and waves his empty glove in the air. “It happens just like magic!”

Fiona lets go of my arm.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Skinner says, and I realize he’s speaking to Fiona. She’s dashed off behind the statues. One of the globs—Adler? Baldwin?—moves after her, while the other
one comes for me. But I don’t care. I just want to stop either one of them getting to Fiona. As the first makes a swipe for me, I resort to the only thing I can think of. I bite him.

My teeth sink deep into the glob’s spongy flesh. His blood fills my mouth, thick and rancid. I’m retching, coughing, ready to puke, but I don’t let up.

The bite takes him by surprise. He yawps once and tries to shake me off, but he only throws himself off balance. I leap off the floor, free my jaws, and shoulder into him as hard as I can. He stumbles into his twin, and the three of us go toppling over the statue of an elf. I land on the soft cushion of a goblin belly, while the glob on the bottom gets crushed painfully against the statue. Before the one on top can grab me, I roll onto my feet.

Without a doubt, it’s the most impressive piece of improvised combat I’ve ever come up with. And it works. I spit out the goblin blood and smile. Which, of course, makes them angry. They rise up with a pair of matching scowls and lumber after me. At least they’re ignoring Fiona.

“Henry!” she calls out from somewhere (
where?
). “Get outta the way!”

I have no idea what she means, but I run blindly for the corner of the room. In the upper peripheries of my vision I see her, hanging from a scaffold, feet clamped against the head of that boyish giant, pushing with all her might.

Skinner gasps. He looks terrified for once. “Don’t!”

There’s a slow creak and then a terrible crash. I keep
running. Countless statues go falling, sliding, battering into one another. The ground shakes and a gray cloud of long-settled filth plumes up to fill the room.

Someone runs for me—I can’t see who it is—and grabs my arm. “C’mon,” says Fiona. “Let’s go while we can.” She drags me away, and we clamber through a grimy mist and over countless fallen statues. I can’t help but feel pity for them, especially when I see Matt. “Sorry,” I tell them, though not a single one can hear. “That was
her
fault.”

“Come! On!”

Near the door we see Skinner and the globs pinned under the statue of the giant, under its oppressive weight in gold. The first glob is staring blankly at the ceiling, cradling his bitten hand and taking slow, deep breaths. The other one’s facedown, not moving.

But Skinner is all action. He’s struggling uselessly to free a pinned leg. He spits at us angrily, but the saliva gets stymied between his twisted lips, dribbling down like the spew of an infant. “You,” he says bitterly, pointing at us with his only weapon, a bare finger. He strains against his leg to reach us, but we veer wide of him. There’s nothing he can do.

Skinner and I regard each other. His eyes flash with hatred. There’s something deeply wrong with that dwarf.

“
Let’s go!
”

Moments later we’re out on the street. We run through Dockside until we’re out by the periphery wall. The edge of the city falls away, a sheer cliff to the desert below.

“Okay,” pants Fiona. She’s leaning on her knees, the adrenaline of our escape subsiding. “Where to now? The police?”

“No.”

“But we have to tell them.”

“I already tried, but Skinner’s right. No one believes it. Besides, I just busted out of jail to come here, I can’t exactly go running to the police.”

“Oh,” she says. She cocks her head sideways and stares at me. The lamplight makes her curls glow all over. “You busted out of jail? To come save me?”

I shrug. “Matt helped.”

She throws her arms around me and gives me a long, wet kiss. I return the compliment and when we pull ourselves apart, all I can do is stare happily into her face, tail wagging like a fool. “Thanks,” I tell her. “It was
definitely
worth it.”

She takes my paw in hers and we lean on the wall overlooking the emptiness. Not too far off is one of the deadwood forests, where countless branches jut upward like broken teeth. The trees glow a cool white under a moon that is just now past its apex, miles above Eden.

Fiona nods to herself. “We’re gonna have to go up there, aren’t we?”

“As soon as we figure out how. Right now we need someplace quiet where we can plan our attack.” I pull her away from the wall and start off in the direction of Elvenburg. “But don’t worry. I know a place.”

34

BAG OF BEANS

GRAM’S EYEBALL SWIVELS SUSPICIOUSLY THROUGH THE GAP.

“Siobhan!” she yells back into the apartment. “There’s a wolf at the door again! And this time he’s brought somebody with him!” She whistles quietly, and in a lower, lascivious voice she says, “A
lady
friend!”

Fiona snickers behind me, but I’m all nerves. “Let us in, Gram, we’re in trouble!”

“Sorry, I can’t reach the chain,” she sings. “Have to wait for—
aha!
”

Siobhan throws open the door. “Jack?!” But when she sees that it’s Fiona I’ve brought her hopeful posture collapses. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Come in.”

Fiona and I lower our heads to squeeze through the door. We end up on all fours, the two of us filling the kitchen. Gram squeezes into the corner and takes a perch in her rocker, coiled slippers dangling over the edge. Fiona and I search each other’s faces as our snouts fill with the scents of
this humble elven apartment: floral incense—rose hip and blossoms of spatterdock—and the lingering steam of brewed tea. We pick up subtler scents, too, ones only a wolfish snout could detect. Siobhan’s dimly iridescent skin, for instance, which smells of an evening breeze. It’s practically the scent of moonlight.

“You haven’t seen him, have you?” she asks us. “It’s been two weeks now.”

“Jack can take care of himself,” I tell Siobhan, although I’m not sure I believe it.

She nods. “Maybe, but what about you two?”

Only when she says it do I notice how wretched we look. Our faces are blotchy with grime, our clothes are torn in too many places to count, and—with me especially—fresh bruises are swelling up all over the place.

“We’ve had a rough couple of days,” I say, which inevitably leads me into a lengthy explanation of what’s happened to us.

When I’m finally finished, Siobhan’s only response is, “I better put on some tea.”

Gram, meanwhile, has been bored to sleep. She’s dozing in her rocker.

“So,” says Fiona, “what it comes down to is this. We have to find a way—”

There’s a wet
thump
against the apartment door. It’s followed by a slow, hard pounding, like whoever’s out there is using a baseball bat instead of knuckles.

Ba-doom!

“Quick,” Siobhan says. “That could be the police. You two gotta hide.”

“Where?!” says Fiona. “We’re too big.”

Siobhan points at the window. “The fire escape. Can you fit through there?”

“We’d better.”

Ba-doom!

It’s a struggle to get us through the window, but we make it. Beneath our weight, the web of black metal complains with creaks and groans. We huddle together, making ourselves as small as we can (easier for Fiona than me), and watch through the glass as Siobhan stands at the door.

Ba-doom!

The wood shudders visibly. Siobhan cracks the door open and peers out. Instantly, she slams it shut again—and then undoes the chain and hauls it open.

It’s Jack.

Only there’s something wrong with him. He looks . . .
strange.
He falls into Siobhan’s arms, but she’s unable to support his weight. The two of them crash to the floor and it sounds like someone just dropped an anvil. I squeeze myself back in through the window and find Siobhan on the floor beneath her boyfriend, gasping for breath.

“Get him . . . off me,” she rasps.

I reach down and roll him over, and all I’m thinking is,
Why is he so heavy
? His eyes gape wide at the ceiling, glossy and bulging. Then I see what’s wrong with him. The left side of Jack’s body shimmers. It’s made of gold.

His left arm is stiff. It sparkles yellow. The color spreads under his sleeve to his neck, stretching his skin with its weight, pulling so hard it looks like his flesh is about to tear away.

“Siobhan,” he rasps, but he can’t say any more. His voice is grainy and coarse, like his throat’s full of sand. Fiona comes in through the window and the three of us kneel around him. He nudges his head against Siobhan’s knee.

“Don’t worry,” she says, stroking Jack’s face. Her voice is bare. “We’ll get help for you.” She turns to Fiona. “Call an ambulance. There’s a phone in my room.”

Fiona nods and hurries off. Siobhan gives me a serious look. “You can’t be here when they come.”

From the corner of the room, Gram comes to life. “The cabinet in the bathroom has some of my old fairydust. It’s for my arthritis. I get so stiff!”

“Gram, no!” Siobhan screams. “This is serious!”

“Skinner did this, didn’t he?”

Siobhan nods. “Skinner.”

At the mention of the word, Jack’s eyes open. He manages to peel his head up from Siobhan’s lap. The skin about his neck cracks like old leather. There’s a dribble of blood. It runs over the gold and blots into the collar of his shirt.

“Henry,” he says. “You’re here.” His forehead is sticky with sweat. It’s hopelessly pale. “That’s perfect,” he says, smiling weakly.

Siobhan pushes his damp blond hair off his forehead. “Don’t talk, J,” she says. “Take it easy.”

But Jack’s stubborn. “I read your pop’s letters,” he says to me. “I’m sorry, but I did. When he talked about the fairies still being around, I thought I could find one myself.” He sputters and an eddy of spit foams from the corner of his mouth. He smiles. “I figured I’d find myself my very own fairy godmother. You know how it is, get myself a brand-new destiny.” He rolls his eyes to Siobhan. “I don’t want to be a thief anymore.”

“You don’t need a fairy godmother to stop that.”

“Maybe,” he whispers.

Gently, Siobhan lowers his head back to her knees. She places one hand on his cheek. “Aw, Jack,” she says. “I never cared either way.”

Fiona returns from the bedroom. “They’re coming,” she says.

Jack shuts his eyes. “I’ve seen some weird things,” he says. “Awful things.”

“So have we,” I tell him.

Jack’s eyes pop open. “I know. I think I was one step ahead of you guys the whole way.”

“You were?”

With his one good hand, Jack reaches into the folds of his
shirt. He comes out with a familiar object. An oiled leather pouch, tied with a dirty shoelace. It’s his bag of beans. He rolls it into my lap and smiles at me. “You’re gonna need these.”

Fiona puts a hand on my shoulder. “We gotta go.” In the distance, we’re both tuning in the clamor of sirens. They’re coming this way.

The leather pouch is heavier than it looks. It has a strange weight to it. And I know exactly why Jack gave it to me. There’s only one problem.

“I don’t know how to use these.”

Jack shuts his eyes again. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “They’re magic.”

35

BIG AS BEDSHEETS

WE’RE STANDING ON THE NORTHERNMOST EDGE OF THE CITY. THE PERIPHERY
wall falls away at a ferocious incline, nearly straight down to the desert below. This end of the city is notorious for its secluded streets, its quiet, vaguely middle-class neighborhoods. After a certain hour, these streets are as deserted as the badlands that lie beyond—which is precisely why I chose this place. Even the wind has forsaken it; the air’s got the stillness of dawn.

I lead Fiona to the bulwark. “C’mon,” I tell her. “We’re going over the wall.”

I still haven’t explained what’s in the pouch Jack gave me, but for some unfathomable reason, Fiona seems to trust me. She follows me to a gap in the wall. The stairs beyond it are barely there, just a series of slim blocks cantilevered into a dizzying brick face. The only barriers offering a pretense of safety are the wooden poles pounded into the end of each step. They’re strung together with a balustrade of dry rope.
It’s an entirely unreliable barrier against an accidental (not to mention deadly) plunge over the side.

“Stay close to the wall,” I say, but Fiona doesn’t need advice. I can hear her paw sliding down the rough surface, pressing tight to the bricks. It starts getting cooler as we descend. By the time we reach the bottom, we’re both shivering.

I explain to Fiona that we need to find some open space, and then I lope into the darkness. After only a few minutes of walking, I stop.

“Oh, no.”

“What is it?” she asks.

“We need water. Maybe a lot of it. I should have thought of that.”

Fiona’s silent for a moment, but she’s looking around. She points to a gathering of deadwoods, standing in an eerie puddle of moonlight. “What about over there?”

“Why there?”

“If the trees are surviving, there must be groundwater of some kind. Maybe we could dig for it.”

It’s a good idea. We change our tack, heading for the copse.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about ever?”

“If we find water,” I tell her, “I’ll show you.”

Up close the deadwoods reveal their age. The bark is stretched like old parchment. Fiona and I fall onto our knees to rake away the soil. It isn’t long before the theory bears
fruit. The lifeless topsoil gives way to a boggy mud. Soon, eddies of dark water seep up to fill the pit. I stop digging and fall back on my heels. “That’s enough. I think.”