Black Moon

by L. A. Weatherly

  I didn’t find much I could give to Dwight. Only a wallet; Nate didn’t wear a watch. The Gemini pin on his lapel I left where it was. Dwight wouldn’t want the symbol of Pierce’s tyranny.

  The rumble of the day’s first subway train echoed up from below. Four a.m. then. As I sighed and sank back onto my heels, suddenly all of this felt overwhelming.

  Dig, I ordered myself.

  I’d barely started when I heard a murmuring sound. I froze, clutching the hubcap. No, I hadn’t imagined it – the low rise and fall of approaching voices.

  My heart leaped into my throat. I grabbed my lantern, ready to scramble away through the tunnels…and then I recognized one of the voices.

  Relief and a deeper emotion coursed through me. I briefly closed my eyes.

  He’s back. He’s safe. Thank you.

  The footsteps had paused. Those approaching must have seen my light. “It’s just me – Amity,” I called out. My voice was hoarse. “Ingo! In here.”

  I dropped down to the tunnel floor just as he reached me. His face was smudged with dirt, his black curls lank.

  I hugged my elbows. “I’m very glad it’s you.”

  He gave a small, one-sided smile and set his lantern on a piece of rubble. “The feeling’s mutual. I met Jimmy in the tunnels, and we thought… Wait, what’s wrong? Why are you looking so—” He glanced into the chamber and his eyes widened.

  We hadn’t touched in almost two months, but now he gripped my arms. “Are you all right?” he said urgently.

  I nodded. “It…wasn’t me who did it.”

  Ingo exhaled. He let go of me just as Jimmy appeared behind him. He was a slim ex-thief with soft brown eyes.

  “Oh, shit,” he breathed when he saw the body.

  I quickly explained. Jimmy’s agitation heightened with every word. “Oh man, oh man – that’s all we need, with less than three days to go! If one of the Guns saw you, we’re screwed.”

  Ingo shrugged out of his backpack. “I’m sure Amity’s aware of that,” he said shortly. “Is Dwight all right?” he added to me, and then grimaced. “Stupid question. Of course he’s not.”

  I scraped my hand down my face, remembering. “No. Not really.”

  Ingo didn’t move. His hand clenched into a fist as he studied me. Abruptly, he turned and shifted his lantern to the chamber. He hefted himself up after it.

  “So now we become gravediggers,” he said in a low voice.

  The soil was thankfully soft, easy to dig. Jimmy helped for a while, but then had to leave on an errand for Mac. I knew it probably had to do with the explosives, and didn’t ask.

  Ingo and I finished burying Nate on our own.

  We scattered the excess dirt in the tunnel so there was no sign. When we were finally done and the grave was smooth I felt wrung out, far beyond my physical tiredness.

  Ingo and I sat in silence beside it. I felt as if there should be words but had no idea what to say.

  “Goodbye, Nate,” I said finally. “Dwight says you were a good person and I believe him. I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  It didn’t feel like enough. I glanced uncertainly at Ingo. Without my having to ask, he started speaking in Germanic. The guttural words were rhythmic, soothing.

  When he’d finished, the faint buzz of traffic overhead had temporarily stilled.

  “What did that mean?” I asked.

  Ingo sat cross-legged, looking down. He shrugged. “Farewell, soldier. None of us knew what we were fighting for, yet you still gave your life… There’s more; you get the gist. It’s a poem from an old war. It seemed appropriate.”

  “It was. Thanks.” The smoothed soil of the unmarked grave had an oddly peaceful feel now. And somehow everything felt a little easier between the two of us.

  “Remember the night we met?” I said finally.

  Ingo’s thin lips twisted. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget, Amity.”

  “Dancing the foxtrot with me is one of your most cherished memories?” I joked feebly. So much else had happened that night that the dancing had been the least of it.

  His voice stayed deadpan. “How did you guess? I’m sure it’s not one of yours though. I dance like an elephant, as you probably recall.” He studied me, his almost-black eyes steady. “You’re thinking about Russ.”

  Ingo and I had discovered his body together. I nodded, gazing at the patch of dirt where Nate lay.

  “I checked his pockets, remember? And you asked me if I didn’t want his watch too. Well, look.” I took Nate’s wallet out and showed it to him. I gave a short, shaky laugh. “I took it for Dwight. It’s not much, but…”

  A few months ago, Ingo would have touched my arm. I might have leaned against him just as naturally. Now he didn’t move, but I could feel his sympathy.

  “You did the right thing,” he said. “Dwight will be glad to have it.”

  Remembering crouching in the cupboard, thinking that I couldn’t die without seeing Ingo again, I felt on edge suddenly. I ached to touch him. And despite the sudden mental image of my arrest, of someone I’d loved becoming a stranger…I knew then that I’d lost my inner battle.

  No. I couldn’t deal with this now – it wasn’t the time. I straightened and shoved the wallet back in my pocket, not looking at him.

  “We’d better go,” I said.

  Ingo’s dark eyes turned slightly guarded as he glanced at me. Without comment, he got up and we climbed down from the chamber, leaving the unmarked grave behind us.

  “Goodbye, soldier,” he said quietly as we left. “If you really were one of the good ones, I’m sorry as hell you’re gone.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  September, 1942

  Kay Pierce stood looking at the dead teenager in the interrogation room. He was sprawled in a chair with his head back. He’d been strangled. A purplish bruise circled his neck. He stared pop-eyed at the ceiling.

  Toby Melrose, according to his ID card. Seventeen. He’d been captured after a riot near Monument Park a few nights before – some Discordants had attacked a group of Harmony Helpers.

  Had attacked them. Shouting “V for victory!” apparently. Kay thought of Amity Vancour’s broadcasts and her lips tightened. But Collis still promised that the Resistance could be used to eliminate Cain. Though Kay couldn’t keep the Guns from searching without raising suspicion, she’d taken no steps herself to find Wildcat.

  With luck, the Resistance would serve them well.

  The only sound was the gentle whirring of the ceiling fan. Its breeze rhythmically ruffled Toby Melrose’s hair. Kay studied his lifeless form. A trace of dried foam was at the corner of his mouth.

  Stupid boy.

  She turned to the Gun, who stood waiting in a neat grey uniform. “Have him strung up,” she said. “The sign around his neck should read Rioter.”

  The Gun nodded, looking pale beneath his bland expression. He’d been the one ordered to carry out the garrotting.

  Coward, thought Kay. She turned and left the room, heels clicking on the cement floor.

  At first, Kay had been hesitant to order people killed. Now it was a dark thrill. And necessary. She’d always despised weakness; she was damned if she’d show any. Sandford Cain flashed into her mind again – still hating her, still wanting her dead.

  Show weakness and you were done for.

  One of the captains of the Guns stopped her as she walked towards the elevator, flanked by her bodyguards. “Madame President?”

  Even now the title made her spine straighten. She had done this – taken advantage of Johnny’s death to seize power. No one could ever take that away from her.

  She turned. When she’d been Chief Astrologer, she’d often donned a helpful expression. As Madame President, she’d learned quickly that a flat gaze worked better.

  “Yes?”

  The captain hesitated, glancing at her bodyguards. “Madame President, it’s about your edict last night…”

  “Regarding the Gun who deserted?” said Ka
y deliberately, and watched the captain’s nervous wince with pleasure.

  “With respect, Madame President, that hasn’t been proven.”

  “Has his body been found?”

  “No, but—”

  “Has he checked back into base?”

  The captain exhaled. “No,” he said quietly.

  “Then I think you can assume that Nate Bradley has deserted, and so I can assume that the Guns need more discipline,” said Kay. “You’ll post the notice as ordered – from now on, the families of any Guns who desert will be rounded up and sent to camps.”

  “Yes, Madame President,” said the captain finally.

  “Start with Nate Bradley’s family,” said Kay, and continued towards the elevator.

  The sadness came from nowhere, full-force, as the elevator hummed upwards.

  Dread gripped her. No. Not this again. Kay clutched her arms. “Take me to my chambers,” she said suddenly.

  One of the bodyguards glanced at her. “It’s nearly time for your broadcast, Madame—”

  “My chambers,” she broke in. He nodded and punched in a different number. Kay stared at the buttons as each lit in turn, trying to evade the waves of grey threatening to swamp her.

  On the thirty-second floor, the bodyguards walked her to the ornate double doors of her private wing. One stood with her as the other two searched the rooms.

  “You’re clear, Madame President,” one of the searchers said finally.

  “Thank you.” Though sadness still weighed on her like a blanket, Kay pressed money into each of their palms. They were highly paid, but she wasn’t taking chances. Sandford Cain had too many allies.

  Alone in her chambers, Kay sank down shakily at her private desk and gazed around her. Everything was perfect in here, just the way she’d wanted it: the sitting room with its soft gold tones; the bedroom beyond with its tapestries and four-poster bed.

  As always when this mood came, everything seemed offkilter in some frightening way she couldn’t define.

  She didn’t think the sadness had anything to do with Johnny – he was dead and she was glad – but memories pounded at her. She stared at some work on her desk, wanting to grab it and immerse herself in it. The effort required felt both distant and overwhelming. Finally, slowly, she crossed her arms on her desk and buried her head in them.

  When Kay had first realized that John Gunnison’s interest in her extended beyond her being his Chief Astrologer, she’d been thrilled. Power had always attracted her, regardless of gender – though she’d never encountered anyone, male or female, whom she’d cared to succumb to. Until she met Gunnison.

  The dictator of the Central States – charismatic, compelling, the most powerful person on the planet – had lit her on fire. She’d also been scared of him: he’d held the power of life and death over her.

  That, she supposed, had been part of the attraction.

  She’d known it wasn’t love – love was a fallacy. But she’d been wild about him. She’d longed to know what it felt like to go to bed with such power, and only partly because of what it might mean for her survival.

  Kay shivered, recalling Gunnison in the months before his death, on his slide into full-on insanity.

  He’d made her move into his private chambers. There’d been no escape. In bed he’d liked her to play a “dirty Discordant” who he could degrade. Or he hadn’t even spoken to her, just done what he wanted, with Kay helpless to stop him. He’d ranted about “the dark mirror” – his name for Vancour. Her existence had enraged him, terrified him. Sometimes he’d seemed to mistake Kay for Vancour and had wanted to take himself out on Vancour in the basest ways possible.

  In public, Kay had held her head high. She gave no hint that she was scared senseless – that Gunnison was unravelling – that she had no idea if she could survive this.

  But she’d started carrying a pistol. One of the perks of being Gunnison’s mistress was that she wasn’t searched.

  She’d first noticed Collis Reed around this time. The former Peacefighter pilot was her age, with broad shoulders and handsome, rugged features – things that had never, of themselves, pinged her radar. The golden-haired “Sandy” was a nobody.

  Yet during those lonely, frightening nights, Kay had sometimes found herself thinking about Collis. When she took the trouble to dig into his past – his incarceration in Harmony Three; his history as a spy for Gunnison; his betrayal of fellow Peacefighter Amity Vancour – she’d realized why.

  They were alike, she and “Sandy”. They’d both been kicked around and could happily see the world go down in flames now, so long as they survived.

  When Kay had seen Vancour walking towards Gunnison that day in February – when she’d had just enough time to realize that if Cain took power upon Gunnison’s death, she’d either be left with nothing or have to enter a liaison with Cain – she’d seized her chance, covertly pulling the trigger on Cain in the chaos.

  Moments later, as Kay had forced President Weir to sign his country away, she’d known that for a change, she was the powerful one. The rush of triumph had been indescribable. And when Collis was found with his bullet wound later, she’d decided that she wanted him purely because she wanted him.

  Again, it wasn’t love. Love was a story told in the moving-picture palaces. But what had seemed simple at first – sparing Collis because she knew she could control him – now, seven months on, felt more complicated.

  Kay was starting to believe she could really trust him.

  Still feeling shaky, Kay raised her head from her desk. She pulled out an astrology chart from a drawer and studied it. The date and time of the subject were written at the top: February 6th, 2.07 p.m., 1942 AC. The moment she’d taken power – the “birthdate” of her reign.

  She studied it avidly. Sun in Aquarius: harmony and understanding. Yes, as far as she was concerned, this was certainly true. Rising sign Scorpio, which was her own sign. Jupiter in the sixth house, bestowing career luck. A grand trine in fire signs.

  It all boded well…except for Uranus square with the mid-heaven. Uncertain – ups and downs. Not that she believed in astrology, of course. But casting charts for her own use had somehow become a habit, something she did to reassure herself.

  Kay took out another chart. The only thing written at the top was Black Moon. Except for the military high-ups, no one but Kay had known exactly what Johnny was planning. He’d been gearing up to it for years. Finally, everything was nearly ready.

  Since taking power, Kay had considered whether to go ahead. The other world leaders had made it clear they wouldn’t challenge her. But people were liars. They had to know about her nuclear weapons – Vancour’s stolen photos would have seen to that.

  From spies, Kay knew the rest of the world was building up armed forces of its own.

  Her spine steeled at the thought. She gazed raptly at the Black Moon chart. A time of unrest – great change. Scorpio ascending again: the change would work in her favour.

  Black Moon. She’d do it. Soon no one, anywhere, would be a threat to her…as long as Sandford Cain could be contained.

  Her private phone rang. Kay sighed, knowing what it would be. She put the charts away – her fingers lingering on Black Moon – and answered it. One of her aides said, “Madame President, I’m sorry to bother you, but your broadcast begins in—”

  “Yes,” Kay interrupted. “I’ll be there.”

  The next morning, alone in her private dining room, Kay sat gazing at the scrambled eggs. Her reflection in their curved silver dish was worried. The eggs were fluffy, yellow-white. They still smelled warm.

  Her stomach grumbled. Kay rose sharply and went to the sideboard.

  Inside a drawer lay a metal box. She inspected it without touching it. When she was satisfied that the hair from her own head that lay across the lock had not been disturbed, she placed the box on the table, then opened the Harmony symbol locket that dangled from her bracelet.

  She extracted a small key and ope
ned the box.

  A packet of crackers and a few dried figs lay inside. Kay angled the box under a lamp, scrutinizing its contents. She smelled them carefully. At last she sighed and took out a cracker. She ate it staring out the window at New Manhattan while the eggs grew cold.

  A knock came at the door. Kay started and turned. “Yes?” she called.

  “Collis Reed, Madame President,” said the maid’s voice.

  Kay’s shoulders eased. She relocked the metal box and put it away. She sat down again and leaned back, angling a newspaper towards her. She crossed her legs at the ankles: relaxed, in control.

  “Show him in,” she said.

  The door opened and Collis entered, carrying a briefcase. Their eyes met and held. Kay offered a hand without rising. “Collie, good morning.”

  His shapely mouth twisted at the nickname. She didn’t usually use it. “Madame President,” he said gravely as he took her hand. Kay squeezed his fingers.

  “Oh, stop,” she said in an undertone.

  “Kay,” he corrected himself. His eyes were pure blue this morning.

  As Collis sat down to Kay’s left, the young maid cleared her throat and said, “Are you finished, Madame President? Would you like anything else?”

  The food still sat untouched. “Wait, I’ll have some of those eggs,” said Collis, with a small frown at Kay. “And some fresh coffee.”

  Kay hesitated. Collis raised an eyebrow.

  “Bring Mr Reed a plate and some coffee,” Kay said finally. She hadn’t touched the coffee either. She kept a small packet in a safe in her bedroom and made her own every morning. The times that Collis had shared this secret coffee, he’d never failed to tease her. In his presence, somehow her need for caution became a point of hilarity instead of fear.

  The maid curtsied and withdrew.

  No sooner was the door shut than Collis was on his knees beside Kay. He gripped her hands, tugging her towards him; she was reaching for him at the same time. She ran her fingers through his hair as their mouths moved together quickly, urgently. His palms stroked up and down her arms.