The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (26 page)

“You three are going to wait for me to finish with this man, because if you leave him here, he’ll end up just like your Daddy.”

“You best not kill him,” Sally said. Draven looked at her, although the light framing her made his head throb with pain.

“Please close the door, Sally,” he said, and waited until she obeyed before he continued, speaking to the group this time. “Do not open the gate or it will be you instead of this…man, if that is what you can call him. And do not throw anything. Stay just as you are.”

When Draven put his teeth in Tom, the sapien screamed. Draven clamped his hand over the man’s face, cupping the chin in his palm and forcing the mouth closed by holding his thumb over the nose. Tom moaned and made awful noises. After a few minutes, Sally said, “You best not kill that man, I mean it. I’ll come in there and stake you myself.”

Draven pulled back, keeping his hand over Tom’s face. “How can you defend this thing? How can you call him a man? He raped you and your child sister. Do you think he’ll hesitate to do the same to his own daughter?”

No one said anything, and no one breathed for a moment. Then Larry spoke. “What’s he talking about, sis?”

“I don’t know,” Sally said, but she glared at Draven across the darkened room.

“Do you forget, I can read your mind?” Draven asked. “I won’t kill him, because you ask me not to, Sally. But I would not do the same for anyone else.”

“You quit that,” Sally said. “Get outta my head, too. And just ‘cause someone done some horrible things don’t mean they ain’t sorry or they’s gonna do them again. Ain’t no call to kill a man for his mistakes.”

“Do you think I cannot read his mind as well? You are too forgiving, because you among all these people are kind to all creatures, even those you despise. Your people have forgotten their humanity, but you alone pity me. Perhaps you should not.”

“I’m starting to think you’re right,” Sally said. “’Cause you ain’t acting worthy of pity just now.”

“I will spare your uncle, because I too remember my humanity. But I spare him out of respect for you alone. He deserves neither your forgiveness nor my humanity. But you do.”

Draven put his teeth back into Tom’s neck and drew until the sapien flagged in his arms. He pulled away and, after a moment’s hesitation, closed the wound. He shook Tom and said, “You’re fortunate your niece is such a good woman. Another in her position would be glad to watch you suffer and die. I would have been glad to make it happen.”

Dragging his chained foot behind him, he made his way to the door of the cell. When he’d drawn as near to the door as the chain allowed, he held Tom’s flaccid body out to the sapiens. “Come and get your own creature of Satan,” Draven said, dropping the body in the dirt.

Larry unlocked the cage, keeping his eyes on Draven. He reached through the gate and pulled Tom to safety without crossing into the cell. Mama knelt beside Tom and attempted to rouse him. He answered groggily.

Larry turned to Draven and grabbed two of the bars so hard his knuckles whitened. He pushed his face as far between two bars as the steel allowed and spit in Draven’s direction. “I’m gonna kill you, and I’m gonna love doing it. I made this here cage for a sumbitch like you, and I’m proud of it. Ain’t a nastier thing in creation than what you are. I hope this cage made you miserable every day you been in it. I guarantee you, you gonna be praying and begging to spend one more day in here when I get hold of you next. You better be ready to hurt like you ain’t never hurt.” Larry spit again and turned away from Draven. “Come on, you two, let’s get outta here afore he starts sucking us all dry as dirt.”

Larry and Mama helped Tom up. Supporting him on each side, they made their way out into the bright summer sunlight. Sally turned back to Draven. “What you do that for? I thought you was a decent type, a real person. Ain’t no person would do what you just done.”

“Sally. I have to eat like anyone else. And I hate the thought of your uncle hurting you.”

“Ain’t that sound just like an excuse? Here I been trying to help you out.”

“And I need to be strong if I am to help you in return. I would never have healed without doing what I’ve done. You said yourself it does not hurt so much. He will be weak for a few days. Give him sufficient fluids. But do not act as if what I did was unjustified. You have seen with your own eyes the things he did to me which served no purpose other than fueling his hatred and bloodlust. At least my cruelty is born of necessity.”

“I ain’t seeing it that way,” Sally said.

“Do you see it as cruel when you kill an animal for food? No. But if you chained, starved, and stabbed it hundreds of times and broke its bones, you might.”

Sally stood at the bars next to her broken chair and looked at Draven. He went to her and reached out and touched her face. Tears wet her cheeks.

“Sally…I did not intend to upset you.”

“I reckon you gone and done it anyway, ain’t you? I don’t even know if I wanna go through with it if I’m gonna be like you.”

“You are fortunate that you have the choice.”

“I ain’t feeling too lucky.”

“Sally, you will be who you are right now. No one can take your goodness from you.”

“Save the crap. I know it was all for show.”

“It wasn’t,” Draven said, taking her chin in his hand. “I meant everything I said about you. You said to me once you were not pretty, but I see that you’re a beautiful person.”

Draven had never thought of a sap as a person before. But these saps were different. They read, planned wars and sieges on Superiors, and knew things he himself did not know. They had their own community with rules and organization and leaders, their own gruesome ceremonies. They were people, not animals.

“That sound like a whole lotta apologizing from somebody knows he done wrong,” Sally said.

“I am sorry I have upset you,” Draven said. “But I won’t apologize for what I did to your uncle. I’d have done worse if not for you.”

“It ain’t your place to hand out judgment and punishment to my family. And it ain’t your place to tell things I done told you in private.”

“I apologize. I believed your family knew.” When he kissed her forehead, her look softened and she appeared confused. “Sally, I have come to care for you,” he said. “I never would have said those things if I’d known they would hurt you so much.”

“I reckon I like you some, too,” she said, and she pressed her face between the bars like Larry had and looked at Draven. He knew she meant her words differently than he had.

Before he could speak, the door flew open and Larry burst in yelling. “Get your dirty hands off my sister, you sick freak,” he said, plowing into Sally. Draven’s hand slipped from her face, and he stepped back and looked at Larry, who stood breathing hard and shielding Sally with his body. Now, when the only danger was her affection for a Superior. When Draven had thrown stakes, Larry had used his sister for the shield.

“You okay, Sal?” Larry said, still looking at Draven. “What was you doing letting him touch you? He bite you, too?”

“Uhhhh…no. No, he was talking and…I reckoned he done hypnotized me like Mama said.”

“I’m sure gonna love gutting you like a fresh kilt hog,” Larry said, glaring his hatred at Draven. “Now come on, sis, let’s get Daddy outta here afore this freakshow gets any new ideas. Don’t you worry, bloodsucker, we’ll be back to dispose of you later. Then you’ll be sorry for laying hands on my family.”

Draven had no doubt that if Sally changed her mind, Larry’s words would hold true. He already regretted what he’d done. Not for the act itself, but for upsetting the sapien who had become his unlikely—and only—friend.

Chapter 39

Byron had his good nights and his bad nights like anyone else, and this one was turning out to be a bad one. He had cross-checked all the missing saps with all the missing persons, and no one had lost more than one sap in the last fifty years. One woman had reported five over fifty years, but when he checked, he found that she owned a farm with hundreds of saps, so losing five over half a century didn’t look so bad. Catchers had recovered all but one of hers.

It had been raining when Byron had gone out to talk to her, which only made his mood worse. And he hadn’t found anything important, so he’d gotten soaked for nothing. The only good thing to come out of the visit happened when the woman showed Byron her best breeder sap, who didn’t look nearly as impressive as the one Byron had rented. But the woman told him the breeder had the highest success rate of any breeder she’d had, and even better, seventy-five percent of his offspring were female. Byron got the name of her farm in case he needed to rent a breeder next time his female needed one.

Byron had combed through all the records dozens of times and found little to raise his suspicions. One missing person had disappeared along with his sap. Neither registered as having arrived anywhere else. They simply vanished, like Milton said. The number of male and female disappearances didn’t differ significantly. Occupations were random. Two had been travelers, another visiting an old friend. The most noticeable files were two Enforcers. One had worked on the case, which only made Byron more convinced that Kidd was involved. An Enforcer goes to talk to suspects, finds Kidd, gets suspicious, and the boy simply kills him and does whatever he does with the bodies.

Byron was sitting at his desk when his pod flashed. Milton’s face popped up and Byron accepted the call.

“Byron, glad I caught you. Got another case to add to our stack.”

“Just what we needed.”

“This one’s fresh.”

“Good. Digging through these dusty files isn’t very rewarding. Everything’s been cold for too long.” Sometimes he still used the language common in his human years. But the other Enforcers had all lived at the same time, so they understood, unlike Thirds, who came up with their own dullard expressions.

“This here is still warm, so to speak,” Milton said. “Man driving up here from down in your neck of the woods, in fact. Name’s John Shaw. Don’t guess you know him, but you never know.” The other Enforcers used antiquated expressions, too.

“Never heard of him. Order?”

“Third. Under Cause of Relocation he put ‘boredom.’ Guess he won’t be bored anymore.”

“I guess not, Milton. I guess not. So what happened, he just never showed up?”

“Not quite. He’d heard from a friend who lives up here that there were jobs and skiing in the winter, and I guess John thought he’d try his hand at it. That was his reason for choosing Princeton. He was right outside of here, few miles west, and it looks like he got excited and registered that he’d already entered Princeton. The Entrance Officers gave him a few days to get settled because sometimes people don’t check in when they’re supposed to. But this John never showed up at the apartment he rented, and his friend never heard from him.”

“Maybe he stopped along the way.”

“We checked his pod and it was destroyed or deactivated somehow, same way they’ve all been. But whoever’s responsible, this serial killer if I may use the cliché, must have gotten careless, because they left the electronic chip in his car. We found it at the bottom of a lake a few miles out, near this ghost town just west of here.”

“Superior or sapien?”

“Human settlement, I believe. I’ve been here since the War ended, and far as I know, no one had lived there a good long time when I settled in Princeton. It’s too small to be Superior, anyhow. Must be sapiens built it.”

“You’ve never been there?”

“No. Just hear stories now and then. Rumors.”

“Has anyone ever checked out the rumors?”

“Don’t know, sir. Not the kind of rumor with credibility.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, you know. Everything from ‘the town is a utopian paradise where sapiens and Superiors live side by side in magnanimity’ to ‘ghosts come and suck out your soul while you’re sleeping.’ Fairy tales, I’d say.”

“Feel like checking out a fairy tale, Enforcer?”

“Afraid I got some other things to handle in town. Got to keep the town up and running, even with y’all here. Been getting a few reports of a restaurant serving up sapiens for more than nourishment. Gonna go check that out tonight, but I’ll send Caleb over there with you.”

“Make it Drake, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

By the time Byron had gotten ready to leave, Milton still hadn’t gotten back to him, so he went into his sapiens’ apartment and fed quickly. Their smell had started to bother him, but he hadn’t let them into his apartment, so at least their stench stayed confined to their own space. After he ate from both saps, he still hadn’t heard anything, so he went down to the Enforcement office.

“Is Drake around?” Byron asked when he found Caleb.

“He’s out on one of his daily wanderings. You ever notice how that guy never does any work?”

“Yeah, alright. Well, I’ve got some work to do myself and I need a backup, so I guess you’ll have to do.” As much as Byron disliked Caleb, he wasn’t stupid enough to go alone into an area where a Superior had just disappeared.

“So where we going?” Caleb asked as Byron pulled out onto the road. At least the rain had stopped. And maybe they’d find something big. Maybe the night would turn around after all.