The Artifact of Foex (30 page)

Chet cut the motor, carefully climbed past
the Flame and navigated around Aureate’s body to reach the bow.
“Fenimore? Are you alive?”

“I think so," came the hollow response. “I...
oh, Pantheon. Chet, they shot me.”

“Where?”

“Below my left knee. Get me out of the water.
Please, get me out.”

Chet hauled Fenimore into the boat, every
muscle in his body protesting. Water slopped as Fenimore clambered
aboard. Chet couldn’t tell whether his leg was bleeding between the
dim light and wet trousers. Fenimore was dripping wet. The Flame
jerked away but didn’t move off the wooden slat, their eyes wide.
Chet breathed deep and gazed at Fenimore, who was lying in the
bottom of the boat. Was he really bleeding out?

They were almost completely alone on the
water, Chet noticed, glancing around to assess their position. The
Plainsdaugheau coastline was perhaps two or three miles away. It
must have been after midnight based on Elderbeth’s position in the
sky. Few other boats were out sailing, none nearby.

Fenimore coughed and rolled over... only
inches away from Aureate’s body. His eyes widened as he gazed
straight into her ruined, melted face. Fenimore shrieked at the top
of his lungs. Chet tried to grab Fenimore as he attempted to
scramble away from the body. They almost went over the side. Chet
had to hold Fenimore back by his jacket as the boat rocked
violently. Chet splayed his arms out, praying they wouldn’t flip
over.

Fenimore switched directions. The Flame
screamed in earnest as he scrambled toward them, panicked by his
sopping clothing and erratic movements. The Flame, in turn,
stumbled toward the stern. Journey cried out, clutching her bare
feet. The bottom of the boat held a considerable amount of water,
Chet realized. His bare feet and pant legs were wet, too.

Fenimore kept advancing on the Flame, looking
back with horror. Cornered, Knife untangled his gun from the boot
and wet pant leg, turning it on Fenimore. “Stop!” he yelled, voice
raspy with pain.

“Fenimore,
calm down!
” Chet cried.
“Knife, put that thing away. Fenimore isn’t getting near you. Are
you, Fenimore? Fenimore!”

Fenimore still seemed wrapped in blind panic,
his eyes rolling white as he gazed at the gruesome remains. Any
second he might jump toward the stern again, gun or no gun. Chet
couldn’t let him. Chet snagged Fenimore’s sopping jacket, hauled
him around and slapped his face. Fenimore hissed outrage. He
unsheathed his hunting knife with a quick flick of his wrist. Chet
held onto Fenimore grimly as cold steel was pressed against his
throat.

Everyone froze. The boat rocked under them,
water splashing against the sides. Chet looked Fenimore in the eye.
“You’re not going to kill me. You need me. I’m the only one who can
get us out of this mess.”

The knife was slowly lowered. Fenimore
wheezed and looked over Chet’s shoulder at the body. “What... what
on Uos
is
that?”

“Our friend. She’s dead. She cannot possibly
hurt you,” Knife growled from the stern. He holstered the gun and
held Journey in his arms, his expression twisted with fear, anger,
pain and outrage.

“Oh.” Fenimore breathed out, seeming to
crumple into himself.

Chet had to take charge. No one else could.
The Flame were useless at sea; the extreme danger was evidenced by
the corpse at their feet. Fenimore didn’t know modern motors, and
he was injured, although how badly Chet couldn’t tell. Besides,
Chet didn’t trust him. Especially not after what he’d just
done.

Chet sighed. Even simple maneuvering around
the boat required a strategic upper hand. He wanted the Flame back
on the central wooden slats where they’d be at the least risk of
injury, but asking Fenimore to sit beside Aureate’s body was right
out. He didn’t want an argument. He also didn’t want to move the
body again, mostly because he didn’t want to touch it. A useless
wish. Chet suddenly understood he was the only one who’d be
able—and willing—to get rid of the body... if that indeed was what
needed to happen.

Abyss. Take it one step at a time.
If he tried to do it all at once, he’d sink and take everyone down
with him. Chet needed to put one foot in front of the other. He
could get them out of this. He could. They just needed to calm
down, to see each other as human again. Chet glanced at the duffle
bag at his feet. It held the Raptus, but he didn’t think that would
help just now. What would?

“Journey, do you have any food in this
bag?”

“Uh.” Journey seemed to switch gears with
difficulty. “I think so. A paper bag of nuts and dried fruit.”

Chet riffled through the duffle. The outside
was wet, but it was lined with rubber, sparing the contents. He
felt soft clothes, the hard, thorny Raptus, and... there. The small
sack seemed promising. He pulled it out and poured a handful of
fruit and nuts into his hand. Then he passed the bag to the Flame.
“Have some.”

“Chet, we need to get out of here.”

“Eat,” he growled.

They hung their heads and obediently took a
handful each. Chet could see precisely what Knife had meant about
Flame being too easily controlled. They both seemed cornered, their
personalities flattened in the face of the immense danger
surrounding them. If Chet were the kind of guy into abusing Flame,
it would be absurdly simple to gain the upper hand with
psychological and physical manipulation. Knife grimly handed the
sack back to Chet, and he offered it to Fenimore.

Fenimore stared at it blankly. He was
clutching his leg, his face deeply etched in the dark. “Um...”

“Eat.”

Fenimore, too, obeyed. Good. Now they were
getting somewhere. Minute crunching sounds filled the boat. Chet
glanced up at the clear sky and could only be grateful that there
was no wind. If there had been the sea would have been rougher, and
the motorboat would have probably tipped over in the chaos,
instigating more deaths. Chet issued up a quiet prayer to the
Pantheon, grateful beyond measure for smooth sailing.

After a minute, Chet sighed. “Fenimore, you
are to strip out of your wet clothes. Everything goes.” On impulse,
he said, “Throw the wet clothes over the body.”

Yes,
he thought,
that’s
right.
Best get Aureate’s ruined face out of sight where it
wouldn’t be so alarming. As Fenimore obeyed, Chet reached into the
bag and pulled out what proved to be Fenimore’s dirty trousers, the
same pair he’d had on in the lucid mud. The puffy shirt followed.
Fenimore hissed as he drew the wet pants off, and Chet took a
closer look at his leg. The wound didn’t seem large: the emerging
blood was more trickle than gush.

“I think the bullet grazed the side of your
calf. You’re not bleeding too badly, anyway. Knife, what do you
think?”

Knife reluctantly craned his neck, then crept
forward for a better look. “I agree that it’s a graze. I don’t see
entrance or exit wounds. You’re lucky; we can bandage you with
something for now, but you’ll need stitches later. Here, um...” He
felt through his pockets and extracted a fluttery silk scarf.

Chet blinked. It was feminine and kind of
familiar. Had Knife been sleeping with someone when Chet’s cries
interrupted him? And hadn’t Knife said he didn’t like women? No,
he’d said he didn’t like
being
a woman, which wasn’t the
same thing at all. Anyway, one scarf did not mean a sexual tryst.
Maybe he’d won it while gambling with other passengers.

Reminded, Chet glanced back toward the ship.
Whatever fire there had been seemed contained now, or at least, he
didn’t see evidence of it. “Knife, you bandage Fenimore. Journey,
in a moment I’d like to switch places with you. I’m going to get us
out of here.”

“
Finally!
” someone—or several
someones—muttered.

Chet grinned as he stood up. “While I’m
getting us out of here, I think we’d all like to hear what happened
to each other tonight. Who wants to begin?”

Pregnant silence followed. “I’ll speak
first," Journey volunteered after a few seconds, her voice shaking.
“But Chet, could you lift me up and put me on the other seat? I’m,
um...”

Chet blinked down at her. By Elderbeth’s
light, she seemed very uncomfortable and, looking closer, he
swiftly realized why. Her bare feet and legs were blistered, and
some of the angry spots were bursting. Blood trickled even as he
watched.

Chet jerked back, alarmed. “Are you—will
you...”

“I’ll be fine," she said, clearly containing
her pain.

Chet could see by the little lines around her
eyes what it cost Journey to remain calm. He immediately felt
ashamed of his actions, making them eat before triaging her wounds.
“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I know why you did it," she
murmured, touching his lips. “You had to get control of F—of the
situation.”

Chet sighed, silently agreeing with her slip
of the tongue. Very, very carefully, Chet took Journey in his arms
and transferred her to the middle wooden slat. She was wet in other
places, he noticed, her skin covered in blisters where she’d been
hit by spray and splashes. She was dressed in just undershirt and
panties, after all.

“Knife, do you have that lighter?” Chet asked
tightly.

“ One moment, let me finish this.” Knife was
wrapping up Fenimore’s leg tightly with the scarf, knotting it with
care, though he seemed to be using only a few fingers to do so.

Blistered hands, perhaps? Knife’s feet were
touching the bottom of the boat, encompassed by his boots, Chet
noticed. The boots he never took off. Apparently, they’d been
water-proofed to the point where Knife didn’t worry about puddles.
His pants legs were going to eventually soak all that water up and
hurt his legs, though Chet snorted was sure Knife would know what
to do in that contingency.

Chet wished he had a light other than fire to
check inside the motorboat’s gas tank. He just had to assume they
had enough gas to make it shore. He began angling toward the
Plainsdaugheau skyline. Fenimore slouched on the edge of the middle
rung while Knife tended to Journey. Knife held her hand while
working the lighter between her toes, his expression radiating
gentleness. In turn, she murmured over the blisters on his hands,
worried at the pain he was feeling. Chet sighed, envious of their
tender grooming. At least they weren’t freaking out anymore.

“Journey? You said you’d go first," Chet
said.

“I did. It’s like this. I was really, really
occupied for a while, okay? And afterwards I was pretty sweaty. I
wanted a bath, but there’s nothing like a real fire on a modern
vessel like that. So I thought, why not try the galley? They
sometimes have these little cans of jellied chemicals that are used
under chafing dishes, perfect for hours of contained flame. I
wondered whether they might lend one to me. Or if no one was
cooking and they had a gas stove, that would work fine, too.

“No one was cooking, which didn’t surprise me
at that hour. I spoke to the last employee wiping down; the kitchen
had closed an hour before. Only the bar was open all night. They
had a gas stove, and she was fine with me bathing there, being used
to Flame and all. After she left, I stripped down and climbed onto
the stove. You can get almost clean if you lie down and roll over
the burners, you know, depending on how greasy it is. I wish I’d
put my clothes in the bag, instead of folding them on a counter.
And my
new shoes
. Oh, well.”

“Were you interrupted by those guys in
black?” Chet said.

She nodded. “I heard noises, at first. They
were trying to be quiet and weren’t very good at it. They had these
radio transceivers; old ordinance from the war, I think. They kept
crackling, which is what alerted me at first. I didn’t want to be
caught in the nude, so I started dressing, but I wasn’t fast
enough. One of them barged into the kitchen and cried, ‘Flame!’ He
drew an army-surplus pistol on me and ordered me to sit on the
floor, then called his buddies on his bulky transceiver radio.”

Chet frowned, wondering how Journey had known
where the pistol had come from. She’d talked about surviving the
war but had never shared
how
she’d survived, he realized.
Now was not the time to ask. Chet made a little noise to encourage
her to continue, not that it made a difference. Journey was in full
story-telling mode.

“They grabbed the duffle first thing and
began searching it, which is when they found the Raptus. They
seemed very pleased and called over the radio that they’d found it.
They stopped paying so much attention to me; I saw my chance and
rushed them. Whoever they were, I didn’t want them to get the
Raptus.” Her mouth compressed into a thin line.

Chet glanced down at the rucksack on the
seat, thinking about what it contained. The Raptus was the reason
they were all here. He’d almost forgotten
why
Journey and
Knife were putting their lives on the line, risking death and
prison sentences.

“It was a mess. I was dressed as you see me
now, and it’s been too long since I’ve been in combat. I kept
wishing I had Knife or, or Aureate with me. The guys managed to get
me down and were tying me up—silly doedicus to tie up a
Flame
—when Fenimore burst in.” She looked over Knife’s
shoulder, smiling at Fenimore. Fenimore blinked and smiled back,
seeming almost as surprised as Chet at her positive regard.
Usually, she looked at Fenimore with cool, critical eyes, probably
because of their—misunderstanding—in the Wetshul hotel.

“Fenimore was
fantastic,”
she
continued. “He kicked them up, down and sideways. He grabbed the
Raptus and tossed it to me. I stuck it in the duffle bag and was
about to go out the backdoor when another one of those guys rushed
in, blocking me. By that point, Fenimore had forced the others to
retreat out the front. I could still hear them out there,
fighting.