The Elves of Cintra (35 page)

T
WO OF THE
S
ENATOR’S
L
IZARD
bodyguards followed them as they walked from the temple hall and into the darkness once more.

“Don’t say anything,” the girl told him quietly.

She took the lead, walking them back down the street they had just come up and then off to the west and into a district of collapsed buildings. Mounds of debris and rubble covered what must have been dozens of square blocks. The entire area had the look of a war zone, and for as far as Logan could see in the moonlight there was nothing standing that was even halfway whole.

They were well into the center of the rubble, an unfathomable maze, when the girl turned into an opening between two partially collapsed walls and moved to a door that sagged open and splintered on its broken hinges. She stepped through the entrance into a room partially lit by moonlight that streamed down through a collapsed roof. Logan followed, but the Lizards remained outside. Debris lay in heaps against the walls and in the corner spaces. Without a word, she began pulling away stones and pieces of wood from one such pile. Logan was quick to help her, and within minutes they had uncovered a trapdoor.

Logan started to say something, but the girl quickly put a finger to her lips and pointed at the door. Together they heaved upward on the iron ring, and the door opened on a set of stone steps leading to a cellar.

Cat went down the steps first, with Logan right behind. The Lizards made no move to follow, standing with their backs to the entry, staring out at the night.

“The Lizards are said to be family,” she told him once they were all the way into the cellar, speaking softly so that only he could hear. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but they are fiercely loyal. Several have died for him during the assassination attempts.”

“Who tried to assassinate him?” Logan wanted to know.

The girl shrugged. “People from the compound, mostly. Fanatics who think all Freaks are dangerous and should be eliminated. Some blame the Freaks for what has happened to the world in general.” She shook her head. “Some just need to find a way to make someone—anyone—pay for what has happened to them.”

She reached into the darkness and switched on a solar-powered torch. “Not that the Senator hasn’t brought much of it on himself. He’s as dangerous as the things he claims to protect his constituents from. He might even try to kill you.”

Logan grabbed her arm. “Kill me? Why?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

She tried to pull away, but he held on to her. “Wait a minute. What are you talking about?”

She glared at him. “You’d better let me go if you want to get out of this in one piece.”

“I’m not the one who got me into this. You are. Tell me what this is all about, Cat. Right now.”

She held her ground, shaking her head slowly. “You won’t take me with you if I do.”

He heard the despair in her voice, and he softened his own. “Just tell me, please.”

She was silent for a moment, and then she said, “It’s because of me. He owns me.”

At first, Logan didn’t think he heard her right. “He
owns
you?” he repeated, trying to make sure.

“That was the bargain I made with him when he took me in. He agreed to give me food and shelter, but in return I became his property. He said it was an old tradition dating back to the beginning of politics. He said I would belong to him until I paid my debt.” She looked down at her feet and sighed. “I agreed. I was desperate. I was starving, and I knew I was going to die.” She paused. “I guess I would have done just about anything.”

The way she said it suggested to Logan that maybe she had. He felt a tightening in his throat and a sudden anger. “So he doesn’t want to give you up. That was what he was talking about back in the hall when he reminded you of your bargain. He thinks you might try to leave with me.”

She nodded, saying nothing.

“And all that business about being saved by a family of Lizards who took you in when you were exiled from the compound was just something you made up?”

She shrugged, not looking at him.

He released her arm and looked around at the room, which was filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes. “Is the Cyclomopensia here? Or did you make that up, too?”

She tightened her lips and walked over to one set of boxes, peeled back the covering, reached in, and pulled out half a dozen packets. She handed them to him. “Enough for a month’s treatment. I wasn’t lying. I know about medicines. I was put in charge of the medical supplies because I had some experience in the compound. They don’t use them much out here. Their immune systems changed when they became Lizards. But there are humans among us, too. Street people. I treat them when they get sick. Sometimes, I trade medicines to the compound for stuff we need. But the Senator doesn’t like me doing that, no matter what. He hates the compound people.”

Logan glanced around. “Are all these boxes filled with medicines?” She nodded. “Okay. Pack up the ones you think will do the most good. We’ll take them, too.”

She stared at him. “Are you still taking me with you?”

“Why? Do you think I should leave you behind? I thought we made a bargain.”

“They’ll try to stop you. They might even try to kill you. I wasn’t making that up.”

“Just do what I told you.”

She began gathering packets from various boxes, stuffing them into pockets sewn inside her cloak. She worked quickly and without talking while he made another quick survey of the room, keeping one eye on the open doorway. If they intended to kill him, they would do so when he emerged, thinking to get to him before he could even think to defend himself. The Senator would have told them who and what he was, would have warned them about his staff, would have told them to act quickly.

He shook his head.

He saw a second door at the back of the room.

“What’s behind that door?” he asked her.

She stopped what she was doing and looked to where he was pointing. “Nothing. Another room, but it’s empty. Sealed, too. The Senator fused the locks to make sure there was only one entry. If we try to break them, the guards will hear and call for help.”

“What if they don’t hear?”

He walked over to the door, laid his staff against the hinges, and summoned the magic. In seconds, the fire had burned through the iron clasps and the door was hanging open. Debris blocked the way through from the other side, but gave before him as he pushed past it. The room beyond was cavernous, but mostly empty. It might have been the basement level of a warehouse in an earlier time, but whatever had been stored there was long gone.

On the far side of the room, a broad roll-up door stood open at the top of a ramp.

“Are you finished?” he asked her.

She nodded and walked over to join him. “How did you do that?”

He gave her mottled face a deliberate stare. “My special staff.”

They moved past the debris and through the room to the roll-up door. Logan took a moment to be certain the Lizards hadn’t guessed what he might do, but he did not sense their presence. Nor did he detect any danger. He stepped through the opening, the girl right behind, and was back outside.

They walked for a long time after that, circling away from the storeroom before heading back to where he had left the AV. The silence was deep and pervasive and the dark of the night a willing accomplice to their flight. They didn’t speak at first, keeping silent out of necessity, not wanting to give any indication of where they were. If the Senator decided to come looking for them, they didn’t want to give him any help.

“We don’t have to hurry,” the girl said suddenly, turning her mottled face toward him. “He won’t come looking for me right away.”

Logan raised a questioning eyebrow. “He won’t? Why not? Won’t he want his property back?”

“He won’t believe you’ve agreed to take me with you. Not at first. He’ll think you’ve left alone.”

“I thought you said he was worried about losing his property.”

She looked away. “He is. He knows I will try to go with you; I’ve tried leaving before. He just doesn’t think you will agree to take me.”

“He won’t? Why is that?”

“Because I’m a Freak, and he doesn’t think anyone would want me but him.”

They were passing back through the neighborhood where he had first encountered the girl when Rabbit reappeared, falling into step beside them, her strange hopping motion revealing her identity even before they could make out her features.

“Can we take her with us?” the girl asked.

Logan shrugged. “A cat who knows enough to look beneath the skin to judge a person’s character is too valuable to leave behind.”

Even though her face was turned away, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a smile.

TWENTY-ONE

M
OONLIGHT BATHED
the shadowed landscape, draping the roofs and walls of buildings, staining the flat, empty fields and layering the highway’s dark surface. Candle trailed the boy with the ruined face by a few paces, working hard to keep up, not wanting to feel the sharp jerk of the cord he had tied about her neck to prevent her from bolting. She had said almost nothing since they had started out, too frightened to do more than follow his directions. But they had walked a little more than two miles by now, and she was already growing tired.

“How much farther are we going?” she asked.

“As far as I want to.”

“How far is that?”

“Far as necessary to get back.”

“Back to where?”

His scarred face turned toward her. Irritation reflected in his one good eye. “To where I was when your friends took me away.”

“To your family?”

“To my tribe.” He cleared his throat and spit. “You’re the one with the family, not me.”

She walked on a little farther before saying, “I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t care what you want.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Taking me with you.”

“Because I feel like it. Because I can.” He muttered something she couldn’t hear, then said, “I’m doing to them what they did to me. I’m taking you away like they took me. Let’s see how they like it.”

She was silent again for a moment. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided.”

“You shouldn’t do this.” She was on the verge of tears. “You should let me go.”

“Shut up.”

She did, and they walked on without speaking, following the dark ribbon of the highway as it stretched away into the distance. She found herself thinking of the booming sound of Bear’s flechette as it discharged, wondering what it meant. Something had happened, and she hadn’t been there to prevent it by warning them.

And it was all because she had tried to do the right thing.

“I set you free,” she said defiantly, believing her declaration said everything that needed saying.

“Thanks,” he replied.

“So you should let me go.”

“Don’t try to tell me what to do. You don’t know anything.”

“I know I helped you, and now you won’t help me.”

“You helped me because you were afraid of what I might do to you and your friends if I got loose on my own.”

“That’s not true!”

“Sure it is. I saw the way you looked at me. You were afraid.”

“I was afraid of what might happen to you. I was worried about what the others might decide to do when Owl wasn’t looking.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You set me free. That’s all that counts. It’s over and done with. You better learn to live with it.”

She tightened her lips against the urge to cry that kept trying to surface. She was ten years old, she told herself. That was too old to cry.

Her thoughts drifted. She had done what she believed was right in setting him free. She had seen the way Panther looked at him. The first chance he got, he would hurt the boy. He might even kill him. One of the others might do it if Panther didn’t. She couldn’t be sure. Owl couldn’t protect him forever, and Candle didn’t want to let anything happen to him. Squirrel wouldn’t have wanted him hurt, and neither did she.

She had pretended to be asleep, then risen and walked over to the boy and watched him for a long time as he slept. When he had woken, alerted somehow to her presence, she had watched him some more, even after he had turned away from her. Finally, her mind made up, she had gone over to him, unlocked the chains with the key she had taken from Owl, and set him free.

“Run!” she had whispered to him. “Get as far away as you can!”

But instead of running, he had clapped his hand over her mouth, picked her up, and carried her away, taking her behind the shed and then off toward the highway, keeping to the deep shadows where Bear couldn’t see them. She would have struggled harder, but he had whispered to her that if she did he would hurt her really bad. Terrified and confused by what was happening, she had kept quiet until it was too late. By then, they had reached the highway, he had found some cord with which to collar her, and she was his prisoner. Even then, she had thought he would get tired of her and let her go or that he would see that what he was doing was wrong. Even then, she had believed he would come to his senses and do the right thing.

Now she didn’t know.

“No one tried to hurt you,” she said. “Even after you killed Squirrel and couldn’t fight back, no one did anything bad.”

“I didn’t mean to kill that kid,” he said defensively, his mouth twisting. “It was an accident. They frightened me. The gun went off on its own.” He shook his head, his face troubled. “It was only a stun gun, anyway. It shouldn’t have hurt him that much.”

“But they could have hurt you back, and they didn’t. So why are you being so mean to me?”

He wheeled about and snatched at the front of her shirt, pulling her so close to his face that she could see the particulars of the scars of every wound he had suffered. “If I wanted to be really mean to you, I could. I could hurt you enough that you would look like me. So just shut up!”

He threw her away, knocking her off her feet, and then yanked hard on the cord until she scrambled up again.