What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (39 page)

Stay on your feet. Turn and run. Try—

Try what? I have to stand and face her. Fight. The Riders are between me and the fence that encircles the carnival rides. Between me and the far end of the midway. Between me and Emily. Everywhere.

They start to chant—
Blood for blood. Blood for blood.
They have reached the end of the ceremony at last—and I am Moira’s sacrifice.

I scan all the bloodless faces around me, each pair of eyes shaded by dark glasses, each mouth like a carmine scar, each body clothed in gradations of black. Aisa must be somewhere in the crowd. With Milo and Bodie. And she will not save me this time.

What do I do when Moira attacks me? Scratch, hit, kick? Bite?

She is walking toward me, unmistakably, deliberately walking this time—I can see her legs move, hear the crunch of her feet on snow. I keep backing up until I can’t go any farther. She’s driven me back to the smooth side of the Gravitron, my shoulders pressed against it. I see her smile—everything working to plan, just as she wants it.

How will she kill me? With black-gloved hands? With the heels of her fashionable suede boots?

She’s directly in front of me now, an arm’s length away. And with incredible speed she lashes out with her right hand, gloved fingers latching onto my neck, pressing into my throat, beginning to squeeze with shocking power.

In seconds my head is light, like I’m spinning into a yawning vortex. I try to gasp. I snatch at her wrists with weakening hands. I’m barely aware that the chanting of the spectators has turned into confused shouting. There’s some movement at the fringe of my vision—shoving, jabbing—shuffling bodies being pushed aside.

And then Moira is wrenched away.

I collapse back against the Gravitron’s side, stroking my throat, trying to rub away the pain, wheezing and struggling to suck in as much air as I can. But I can see that, very near to me—

A black figure, a tall Black Rider, has Moira in a chokehold.
Bodie? Milo?
Would they dare?
The Rider’s head is covered by a hood, his face impossible to see.

Moira thrashes and writhes like a panther in a snare. She claws, she kicks back at her attacker’s shins, tries to slam the back of her head against his face. Slashing, beating, twisting like a dying animal in his grip.

But this Rider hardly moves, is locked onto her, holding her fast like she has all the strength of a child.

Then two figures are at his side—Doon and another member of Moira’s tribe. But the stranger whirls around, drags Moira back with him until he, too, is pressed against the Gravitron. I scramble aside to give them room, not really frightened by what’s happening but fascinated by it, like it’s a slow motion car crash or a gradual tumble off a ledge in a dream.

I desperately want to see who this is. I want to see his face—but Moira’s thrashing and the hood he wears keep his features obscured.

“Try to interfere and I will kill her,” he says. His voice reverberates out to the crowd, fills the space, cuts through the tempest. He’s not panting, not winded at all.

The voice—so familiar. The body of this Rider—it looks—

“Can’t kill me,” Moira gets out, her voice broken, nearly smothered. “Can’t die.”

“I can kill you,” the one who holds her says, raising his voice still louder. “I’ve done it before. We
can
die. You’re all fools if you think we can’t.”

The Riders are closing in, only a few feet away now. They’re howling with rage, getting ready to step in. Each one weighing the consequences, considering the stranger’s words. I imagine only Aisa and her crew are hanging back, waiting to see what happens.

Doon is hovering closest to us. Without warning, he shifts position like Moira had when I charged at her, without deliberate movement, is suddenly at her side like there’s a jump in an old reel of film I’m watching. The Rider clutching Moira reaches out with her, holds her aloft with a hand around her throat, leaving her feet to dangle above the ground. He calls out above all the clamor,
“There is death—and I will show it to you.”

And he releases Moira. She sinks to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Then he’s at my side.

Larkin. It’s Larkin.

Why did he wait so long?

He looks at me for only a moment, his eyes uncovered, bottomless indigo pools.

“Come,” he says to me.

“Is she?”

“No, not yet. But they’ll think she is.”

Over Larkin’s shoulder—faster than I can see how it happens—Doon’s face appears. My face has a split-second to react, to warn him with my expression—no time to get a single word out.

But Larkin knows. He twists to the right, slams his elbow into Doon’s abdomen. I can hear the thud, like the wallop of a bat against a hanging side of beef. Doon bends sharply but recovers almost immediately and smacks Larkin across the face, knocking him into center of the crowd, sending other Riders gliding back, out of the way of the combatants.

Although Larkin acts like the blow has stunned him, sent him reeling, he never falls, stays light on his feet, crouching, ready, a slight smile on his face as if he welcomes this.

Doon lumbers toward him, not gliding, no longer as agile as he was. He takes a swing at Larkin and Larkin drops to his haunches, then throws himself headfirst into Doon, sending him flying. Doon is only halfway back to his feet before Larkin smashes him back down with a slashing downward movement of his left elbow, then knees him hard in the face. Doon plummets forward, face-first on the ground. He’s twitching, like a condemned man strapped to an electric chair after the current dies away.
Twitching like William did.

Larkin looks all around the open midway. “Do you want to see how our kind can die? Do you really want to see this?”

Those words, they make my spine feel like ice. Maybe I’m wrong—maybe it’s not Larkin. I never heard him speak like this. Is it possible to reconcile this changed creature with the boy I knew?

He sinks to one knee, leans over Doon. From a pocket of the frayed black overcoat he wears he removes a dark object, something thin and steely like a pick or a spike. He folds back the collar of Doon’s jacket, aims the point of the tool he holds at something that looks like a lump on the back of Doon’s neck. Then he wraps his hands around the handle of the tool in one huge fist, lifts his arms up high.

The Riders surrounding us are frantic, horrified, begin to uselessly chant—
Not fair, Not fair
—but not one makes a move to help their comrade, not one takes a step forward. The thin body of the Rider I called Larkin tenses, starts to bring down the blow when—

—a shriek erupts from near the fighters, a haunted, piercing wail of such agony it makes me think that all those the plague destroyed in Raintree are suddenly crying out from their graves.

Heads turn to where Moira is still on the snowy ground, trying to push herself up, pointing at Larkin. Her mouth trembles open but no words emerge. She climbs painfully to her feet, lurches over to him. Larkin still has his arms raised but is looking at her over his shoulder. Her hands grasp at his—slender, black-gloved hands clawing at his pale, exposed fingers—trying to keep him from dealing the fatal blow.

Her shades have fallen off. I can almost imagine I see something human in her eyes, an iris, a pupil, a center lens that’s focused on Larkin, that’s pleading, that shows real emotion. She’s been brought down to the level of a mere mortal. To my level.

I hear Larkin say, “Well?”

She tries to push his hands down and he lets her. He’s no longer poised to strike. Moira keeps a hand over his and lifts another to point at me. “Why her? Why—save her?” Her voice is a rasp, a ghost of its former self.

He shrugs and looks at me. He’s so strange. I keep thinking of him both as Larkin and as a stranger who only resembles him. The face is the same, the build, the voice. But his eyes—empty black pools where before there was substance, something recognizable.

Moira’s eyes are as black as his. I was wrong to think I could see anything human in them.

I watch Larkin or this likeness of Larkin and Moira together. They look like grieving lovers, hands together.
That can’t be—he just tried to kill her.

What will happen now? Does Larkin really want to save me?

Without warning a thick internal fog creeps up on me. My mind fuzzes over. Every shred of strength in my body leaves me at once. Involuntarily, I sink to the ground, my back sliding against the Gravitron’s slanted metal side.

It’s hard to see, hazy, but I’m able to watch as Larkin gets to his feet, begins walking over to me. I stare at his boots as he takes each step. He doesn’t glide, doesn’t suddenly appear in front of me but walks like a normal person. Walks in boots that are creased and worn.

I’m afraid to look up at him, to raise my head and look him in the eyes.
Those eyes—they will swallow me whole.
If he is Larkin, he’s far too different now. I’m so afraid I won’t recognize him. And he won’t know me. Afraid that everything we shared is gone.

But you must look—must make sure it’s him.

I try to work up the courage and when I think I’ve found it I find that I
can’t
raise my head. It’s physically impossible. Black nothingness is closing in on me. My chin sags and I’m too weak to do anything but stare at the toes of those scuffed and battered boots.

He’s walked countless miles. He, too, has reached the fabled city to the north we sought for so long. And now we’re reunited. But what does it mean? Who is he now?

The dark engulfs me and I see nothing else.

Home

I hear his
words first. “I think she’s waking up.”

Who said that?

“Larkin?” My voice is a croak.

“No, it’s Aiden.”

A hand squeezes mine tight. I’ve opened my eyes but they’re filmy, blurred like a projector out of focus. But I see the red hair, the pale, freckled face—
Stace
. “Larkin?” she whispers, confused.

Somebody holds a glass of water to my mouth, an articulated straw rubbing against my lips. “Sorry,” Aiden says. “But you should take a drink. If you can.”

I sip and he’s right—the water feels wonderful, soothes the dry ache in my throat. I reach a hand from under a blanket and touch the soft skin of my neck. It’s tender, bruised. “The Orphanage?” I ask.

The room I’m in doesn’t look familiar. There’s daylight shining through a tall window not far from me, faded green wallpaper all around, a silver-framed daguerreotype with the image of a stern-faced woman in ancient clothes hanging opposite the window.

“No, we’re not in the Orphanage,” Aiden says. “Somewhere better. Home.”

I try to push myself up but my head pounds. “Easy,” Aiden says. “Try sitting up a little and let me slip a pillow in behind you.” He laughs, then coughs a little. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”

He is handsome—a fine nose and mouth, dark eyes, soft brown hair that’s thick and crudely chopped off at the shoulder. But he looks haggard, bony and pale, like he’s the one that should be resting in bed.

I turn to Stace, can see her clearly now. CJ and Terry are here, too. They crowd in and we hug. It hurts a little but I’m happy to embrace all of them. I tell Stace, “Forget what I was saying when I woke up. I was dreaming.”

I want to get out of bed. I want to get a better look at my surroundings. I slide my legs from under the covers, let my feet hit the floor. I see that I’m dressed in a long flannel nightgown, something the woman in the picture on the wall might have worn. “You shouldn’t,” Aiden says. “You should sleep a little longer, then—”

“I want to see.”

I ignore him and push myself off the bed.

It’s a room in an old house, an upper story. There’s a bridge visible outside the window. The window and doorframes are made of worm-eaten wood the color of burnt toast, carved and tarnished. The bed has an antique brass bed frame, the mattress pitted and worn. But piled high with blankets, the bed is warm, comforting. Now that I’m standing, I feel the difference—cold, drafty air tickling the skin of my legs.

The others are watching me anxiously, as if they expect me to pitch over at any moment, fall face-forward on the floor. I make it over to the window where I can look at the bridge.

“Emily’s here, too,” Aiden says.

I turn to him. “Emily?”

“She’s okay. Just a flesh wound. But it must have hurt like hell. I’m trying to keep it from getting infected. Using the medicine you brought for me.”

“What is this place?”

“I found it a long time ago. It’s an old Victorian high above the river. It looks like no one has lived here since 1901. But it has great views. We can keep watch. Defend ourselves.”

Defend ourselves.

I will try to find a place where we don’t have to defend ourselves. Where we can let down our guard, live like people used to. Like the people in this house used to…

I turn back to the window. The view takes in a wide expanse of Raintree. It’s a clear day. The bridge I noticed before is painted blue, has four lanes sloping gently to the river’s west bank with a ridge of steep hills beyond it. If I look to the right, I can see the river’s steel-gray surface and the line of bridges that recede into the distance past the city’s center.

“It’s good here,” I say. “I like it.”

Aiden joins me at the window. He shuffles slowly, like each step requires an effort. “He brought you here,” he says softly. “Brought you and Emily. I’d never seen her before. Or him.”

“Him?”

“He said he knew you. Would protect you. That you were family.”

Larkin. Family.

Aiden glances back at the children. “He told us to leave the Orphanage, find a safe place. I didn’t want to trust one of them but I had no choice. I could hear their bikes—they were coming. I was too weak. The other children…”

“It’s all right, Aiden.” I take his hand. I look out the window, at the river, at the city.