Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (38 page)

Hector hit the bench with his hand, accenting every other word. “Even if they don’t stay allies, they will not attack as hard if she is not here.”

Father moved up behind her and rested a hand on each shoulder, squeezing. “Then her gift helps the Buffalos, and they become stronger. That would threaten us more than her staying. Listen to yourself, Hector. You want revenge for your brother’s death, but it is not Althea you should blame.”

The murmur of the crowd sounded like agreement.

Hector stepped forward, holding his arm out at Althea. “The Prophet is in your minds, forcing you to feel sorry for her. She is enslaving us all.”

“I can’t believe you.” Karina let go of Althea’s hand, advancing towards Hector and his friends. “Althea might be the Prophet, but she’s a little girl, too. Twelve years old! How can you even consider sending her back to a life of slavery? Out there, she is just a thing to be taken and owned… a power to control. Here she has a family. ¡Es mi hermana!” She stared, pleading, at the judges. “Please don’t do this to her. She’s suffered so much already. Don’t take away my sister because of Emilio. How many more will die if she is gone? How―”

The crack of a gunshot stalled all sound until its echo faded.

Karina crumpled to the floor, dark crimson spreading through the front of her dress.

Hector, eyeballs bulging with rage, lowered his arm at the gasping young woman, aiming his pistol at her head.

Althea screamed, overcome by anger. Her emotion, impossible to fit into words, flowed along a wave of psionic force. Gargantuan shadow-judges danced against the polished white marble, drawn by the radiant fury burning from her eyes. Hector’s hand wrenched about with a splintering squish; the weapon tumbled through the upside-down wreckage of his fingers.

The miserable sound of disintegrating bones followed a rapid twist that shot up his arm until it stopped with the crunch of cracking ribs in the side of his chest. The mangled limb resembled a wrung-out dishtowel. Half its normal diameter, it turned dark purple and leaked from various places where the skin had torn. Hector’s cry of anguish ended with a spray of blood from his mouth as he fainted from the excruciating pain; his friends too stunned by what just happened to catch him. The expression of pure rage on Althea’s face made his supporters back away.

Felipe gawked at Hector, mttering. “Oh Dios mío, qué poder tiene esta chica!”

She ignored the stares, collapsing on her knees by her sister. The shot had gone close to the heart, and there was little time. Althea tore through the dress to the wound, placing her hands on either side of a geyser of blood. Searching for enough calm to use her powers, she poured energy into the warm flesh. The blinding anger within her fell away, forgotten, as her heart swelled with desperate love. Within the formless shapes, she found the small gash in the side of Karina’s heart through which the blood-presence surged, and forced it closed. The bleeding lessened. More power flowed through her hands and the rips in the life-shapes sealed.

Karina’s skin shifted under her hands. The bullet nudged its way out and slid through Althea’s fingers to the floor with a dull
clack
. Somewhere behind her, people scuffled. From the sound of it, many men fought to keep Father away from Hector; angry Spanish overpowered the banging gavels. The shifting forms became whole again. Blood, pooled in Karina’s air-bags, forced out onto the cold marble in a sputtering gurgle.

I’m so sorry. This is my fault…
Althea sent her thoughts into Karina’s mind.

“What… happened?” Karina coughed through a sanguine bubble.

“Hector shot you.” Doctor Ruiz spoke up. He had kept pressure on the wound while Althea worked. “You’re going to be fine.”

The wail of a wounded man’s voice rang through the chamber.

“Hector Santos…” The grandfather’s voice hazed in the distance. “For the mur”―he almost dropped the gavel when Karina sat up―“attempted murder of Karina Guererro, we hereby exile you from the settlement of Querq.”

Five hammers came down in unison.

Karina wrapped her arms around Althea, unconcerned her chest was bare and bloody. After a tight embrace, she leaned back and locked eyes. “I don’t blame you… I’m glad you stayed.” She squeezed again, and leaned back with a silly grin. “You’d better mend him. You’ll feel bad if you don’t.”

Father removed his jacket and wrapped Karina with it.

Althea giggled with relief through tears and offered a begrudging sigh. “Yeah…”

he cart squeaked along, a rickety wooden thing held up by old mountain bike tires on either side. Althea pushed it down the winding path leading to the enclosed farm at the southeast corner of town. Crumbly dry dirt caused her to sink ankle-deep in the ground every so often. The orange of the late morning sun flooded the area with warm light and shifting shadows between the stalks of corn and other planted goods set between rows of metal piping.

At the sight of her approach, two dozen people left their tools in place and came over to get the water and lunch she had brought out to them. The man who usually did this was old and weak, and it gave her a chance to spend time with Karina. When the crowd had thinned, Althea scooped some of the ground meat into tortillas and sat next to her sister on the remains of a concrete wall. The farm workers clustered in groups of conversation around the cart while they ate.

“So… Now that this is your home, are you ready for a real dress?” Karina asked in a teasing tone. “Or are you still feral?”

Althea lifted her eyes from the food, making a cute snarl as she mimed a dog tearing at its meal.

When their laughter subsided, Karina tickled her in the side. “In a year or two, you can just wear my old ones. I guess we can wait.” She ruffled her hair. “Are you okay?”

“Mrf?” She had a mouthful of ground chicken and beans.

“The other day, with Hector…”

She looked down, swinging her legs back and forth. “I have never been so angry. He hurt you. It just happened. I know it hurt. I did it to myself once, but not that much.”

“Why?” Karina gasped.

“I don’t like handcuffs.” Althea stopped eating, gazing into her plate.

“Oh.” Karina pulled her into a momentary hug. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Father and I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

Althea smiled and shifted sideways on the crumbling wall. She put her feet up and leaned into Karina. “I’m happy.”

Karina put an arm around her as they chatted idly about a couple of chores they would do later once she got off work.

“Will you clean my hair tonight?” Althea tilted her head to look up.

“Bath night’s not for two more days. Once a week, remember? It takes wood or charcoal to make enough water hot.”

Althea sighed. “Brush it?”

“Okay, but you’ll do mine as well.” Karina gave her a light nudge. “C’mon, I gotta get back to work. The others are looking at us like I’m lazy.”

“Awright.” Althea hopped down and stretched.

“Don’t forget the water man.” Karina called out in a sing-song tone as she strode back among the rows of vegetables.

After running around collecting plates and stacking them on the cart, Althea meandered around the edge of the planted area to a jagged metal structure made of patchwork sheets welded together in a shape that resembled a clockwork mushroom. From its roof, a jumble of small copper tubes sprang out like the legs of a spider that had fallen butt-first into a hole and got stuck. She gazed down their length, out over the field where trickles and drops of water fell onto the crops.

She slapped the door a few times with an open hand after her knock was too feeble to make noise. “Hello? Water Man?”

A throat noise, barely intelligible as speech grumbled from within.

“Are you hungry? I have food and water.”

More noises, though they sounded beckoning this time. She grasped the handle of the door and shoved with all her weight against the monolithic slab. It creaked a rusty groan through the darkness on the other side, leaving her winded by the time the gap was large enough for her. After catching her breath, she ladled some of the meat mixture onto a pair of tortillas and poured a cup of water. She carried the food through the opening, stepping with care along plates of metal stamped with raised diamond shapes. The wet, sometimes oily, surface threatened to take her feet out from under her as she avoided a minefield of sharp scraps, old tools, and invisible slippery spots.

Ahead, lit by a beam of sunlight from a single round window, a heavyset older man wrapped in the largest pair of leather coveralls she had ever seen sat next to a wall full of small wheels and valves. Face and arms smeared with dark grease, his massive, armor-tipped boots skidded in a futile attempt to slide a wheeled chair to the left to reach one of the knobs. The smell of fermented sweat mixed with a metallic taste in the air, and the fragrance of something worse drowned out any trace of the food.

“Here you are.” She smiled and set the plate down.

Jowls wobbled as the large head swung around to look at her. Studded with white fringe that caught the light, his loose cheeks came to a halt just before he finished appraising her. “Wot we got ‘ere?”

It occurred to her she had never seen this man before; perhaps, like her cart, he could not fit through the door. “I’m Althea.” Her grin at the idea was hard to hide.

“What ‘appened to Aldo?” He picked at the tacos, inspecting them.

Althea imagined him counting every grain of rice. “Aldo is feeling tired and sick today, so I am helping.” She tapped her big toe on the floor while gazing around at the strange machines full of knobs and valves. “He isn’t sick, just tired.”

Satisfied his food was in order; he flipped the tacos closed and took one to his mouth. “You should be off, ‘fore Ornry smells ya. He don’t much like kids. Ate the last one what came in here.”

She gasped, taking a step back in shock before she realized he was exaggerating. “That’s not nice to say.”

“Hmmf,” he mumbled. “The bones are in that box.”

Althea frowned; his emotion told her he was lying.

A large, broad-headed dog with small eyes scrambled around the corner, claws scraping for traction over the smooth metal. His coat looked like someone spilled strong coffee randomly over a white animal. The
skiff-skiff-skiff
of uncoordinated locomotion made the water man shake his head.

Bushy collections of white eyebrow came together. “Best run off now ‘fore he gets ya.”

Ornry made a whining growl as he clambered to a stop against Althea’s legs and knocked her into the workbench. After a moment’s glance and a tilted head, he licked the strip of exposed skin across her stomach. She giggled and crouched to pet him, getting a face full of tongue in the process.

The water man stopped eating, and blinked at her. “Well hrmf. Ornry don’t much like no one. You ‘ave a dog before?”

She pulled the animal’s head away from her face long enough to blurt. “Sort of.”

“Well.” He resumed eating. “You must be okay then. If Ornry likes ya. He’ll bite ya tho if’n ya bother me wit too many questions.”

The dog spun itself in a circle and flopped on the ground with a belabored wet exhale. She crouched near him, amid a cascade of leather strands bunching against the floor. Balancing on her toes, she rubbed his side with both hands. The dog adjusted himself, exposing more belly.