Strange Fire

by Tommy Wallach

  At last, she managed to pull herself up to a sitting position, breathless with the effort. She got out of bed and padded out into the empty kitchen, where she put the water on for porridge. Frankie, Terry, and Carlos were already up; she could hear them knocking around in the bedroom that the three of them shared (as the oldest child and only girl, she got her own room). Carlos, the youngest, poked his tousled head around the kitchen door.

  “Where’s Da?”

  “In the garden, most like.”

  Carlos grinned. “Why?”

  It was one of his favorite games, asking why over and over again. Paz knew he didn’t really care about the answers so much as the infinite regression of the inquiry. He was seeking the moment when causality gave way to magic, which always seemed to occur when whoever was being interrogated lost her patience. She could remember one particular series of questions that began with Why is grass green? and ended with her grudgingly admitting to the possible existence of angels.

  “Well, if you don’t get the watering done early, the sun scorches everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the water droplets magnify the light somehow, just like you can use a piece of glass to set a leaf to burning.” Or an ant to writhing, as Terry had been known to do.

  “Why, though?”

  “I guess, well . . .” And here was the funny thing: every now and again, Paz reached a new understanding through Carlos’s catechism. It was why she still bothered playing along; the rest of the family had given up months ago. “I guess light and heat must be the same thing somehow.”

  “Why?”

  Paz flicked a bit of water at him. “Because I said so, goblin. Now go tell your brothers that breakfast is almost ready.”

  The morning proceeded like any other. Paz’s father, José, came inside a few minutes later, already smelling of sweat and fresh earth, and planted a kiss on the top of her head. Just after that, her brothers burst in, and then it was the usual pandemonium through to the end of breakfast, when José assigned the chores that would keep them occupied for the rest of the morning. Paz cleaned up the dishes, then saw to the chickens. She pulled a bucket of water from the well. She carved up the rabbit that Terry had caught in one of his traps last night. And when all her chores were out of the way, she went back into her bedroom and took down one of the precious books she’d borrowed from the schoolhouse in Sophia. The one she was reading now was all about something called calculus, which as far as she could tell was a way of tracking how fast a changing thing was changing. It was difficult to wrap her head around without having access to pen or paper, but she was trying her best. After all, if somebody at the academy had gone to the trouble of writing it down, the least she could do was try to understand it.

  Paz couldn’t have said how long the siren had been ringing when Carlos finally showed up. She lost track of reality when she was reading—particularly something as complicated as that book on calculus. “What is it?” she asked, annoyed at the distraction.

  “The siren’s going,” he said. “Don’t you hear it?” And now she did hear it: a distant ringing, like church bells gone mad. “Daddy says you better come quick.”

  She doubted it was anything important—probably just some sort of mechanical problem with the siren, or else a drill. But she knew the protocol well enough, and quickly packed up a satchel with what food they had at the ready. Then she buckled her gun belt and slid Silverboy into its holster. A few minutes later she met her father in the stables, and together, they rode for the sheriff’s place.

  The rest of the town guard was already assembled when Paz and her father arrived: Sheriff Evan Okimoto, the brothers Eli and Leo Ferrell, crusty old Sam Downing (known by everyone as Gramps), Raff Park (who was a year younger than Paz but looked ten years older on account of his pitted skin and thin hair), and Catriona Lipez. They were the eight best gunslingers in town, as determined by an annual competition held out behind the smithy—a competition Paz had won three of the last four years. The year she’d lost, it was only because her revolver had malfunctioned in the middle of the contest. She’d vowed never to be caught flat-footed again after that, which was why she’d designed Silverboy all on her own.

  “Took your time,” Gramps said.

  “That’s my fault,” Paz said. “I was reading.”

  “Reading?” Raff scoffed, as if Paz had just admitted to something shameful. “What for?”

  “You know what for,” Eli said. “She’s angling for a spot at the academy.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Shut up, every one of you,” Sheriff Okimoto said sharply. “Nobody’s late. Telegram only came in from the pumphouse a few minutes ago.”

  Paz’s heart skipped a beat; this was no drill.

  “The pumphouse?” Paz’s father said. “What’s going on?”

  “Apparently, Riley has visitors.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He is. For now, anyway.”

  Paz liked Riley. She’d gone out to visit him a bunch of times, though truthfully that was only so she could learn how the telegraph machine and the pump worked. By now, she probably could’ve built either one from scratch, if she had the materials on hand.

  “Nobody’s getting in there without a battering ram,” Raff said.

  Paz hated how men were always so sure about things. In her opinion, certainty was for fools; it left you unprepared for the unexpected. “Wesah could’ve taken him by surprise,” she said.

  “It’s not Wesah,” the sheriff replied. “It’s an Honor, from the Anchor. Apparently he and his people set up camp just outside the pumphouse.”

  Just the mention of the Anchor set Paz’s blood boiling. If not for their mad laws, Anton would still be alive today.

  “What are they doing there?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. But something must’ve set them sniffing.”

  “Probably that ‘gathering’ of theirs over by Amestown,” Catriona said with a sneer. “They pass around the shine to get people talking. And they call themselves men of God.” She spat loudly into the dirt.

  About fifteen years back, Catriona had lost her husband and all three of her children to the plague. After that, she’d heard a rumor that the Library had developed a cure that they administered only to senior members of the Church. Paz had no idea whether the rumor was true—though the elderly Archbishop had somehow managed to survive the disease while plenty of younger folks had succumbed—but Catriona had certainly believed it. She’d moved out to Sophia soon after.

  “Anyway, we should get moving,” Sheriff Okimoto said. “I sent a telegram up the hill, and the message from Zeno came back loud and clear.”

  “No survivors?” José said.

  The sheriff nodded grimly. “That’s right. No survivors.”

  It was a journey of almost six hours from Sophia to the pumphouse, and Paz knew every twist and turn of the road, every thicket and crevice and hillock, every graceful catenary described by the thin telegraph cable. The corpse of Raff’s old horse, Merrily, was still visible at about the halfway point, right where it had turned its ankle. Its thin, rotting skin was stretched over an armature of bone that practically glowed in the light from Sheriff Okimoto’s lantern. Though Paz had seen the skeleton plenty of times before, something about it disturbed her today, or maybe it was just the lingering anxiety from last night’s dream. Either way, she’d begun to notice a churning in her stomach. At first she mistook it for fear, only that didn’t make sense; she’d once run into a mountain lion while alone in the woods and hadn’t felt even a flutter of alarm—only wonder at being so close to something so foreign, so savage and beautiful and irreproachable.

  No, her anxiety now wasn’t fear in the traditional sense, but fear’s mirror image: she dreaded what she might have to do. Though she had more hatred for the Church than just about anyone in Sophia, she knew many of its representatives were good men. And it was no small thing, killing a good man.

  It was an hour
past sunset when the posse reached the unmarked road that led to the pumphouse. The trail was just wide enough for two of them to ride abreast, and Paz ended up next to her father.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Don’t know. But you had this look on your face back there that told me maybe I oughta ask. Your momma used to get the same one when she was bearing down to do something she didn’t wanna do.”

  “Like marry you?”

  Her father put his hands up against his heart, as if he’d been shot. “Ooh, that’s vicious. You’re a vicious child.”

  “And I got plenty more in the cylinder, so watch yourself.”

  “Message received.”

  She would’ve liked to tell him what she was really feeling, but she couldn’t; if one person showed weakness in the face of what they had to do, it might rub off on the others.

  Sheriff Okimoto extinguished his lantern as they crested the final hill and the pumphouse came into view. There were four horses tied up out front, but no sign of any people. Evan made the wolf call that was their signal; if Riley was still alive, he would know that they’d arrived. In spite of the urgency of the situation, they took the time to tie up their horses; otherwise the sound of gunshots would likely set the animals running.

  “Don’t forget,” Paz’s father said. “They may not have guns, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. Don’t give them the chance to fight. Don’t give them the chance to run. You hear me?” Paz nodded. “Good. You’ll be covering the retreat.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I look like I’m kidding?”

  It took all of Paz’s self-control to contain herself to a whisper. “Hell, no! I’m going in with the rest of you!”

  “Hey now.” He took her face in his hands. “Someone’s gotta hold back, Paz. And you and I both know you’re the best shot we’ve got.”

  Paz gritted her teeth. “Fine. Just be careful.”

  “Always.”

  She hiked uphill into the woods a ways, to where she could see both the front door of the pumphouse and a good hundred feet back down the trail, then drew Silverboy, who hissed like a snake against the leather of the holster on the way out.

  “Evening, darling,” she said to the gun. “How you feeling tonight?” She extended her arm and squinted along the sight. The weight of the weapon was perfect in her hand, and she could feel her anxiety melting away. No one would get out on her watch.

  She looked on as the rest of the posse stalked quietly past the Honor’s horses and up to the threshold of the pumphouse. They paused there for a moment, then Sheriff Okimoto flung the door open.

  “Nobody move!”

  The lantern inside threw a wedge of buttery light out onto the leaf-strewn dirt, the shimmery bark of the aspens, and . . . something else: two silhouettes, creeping low up the trail. Animals, maybe, only what were the odds of that? She trained Silverboy on one of them, but just then the wind kicked up and set the branches to swaying, muddling up the shadows.

  The voices coming from the direction of the cottage grew increasingly heated. And now the two silhouettes reappeared, much farther along the trail than Paz had anticipated. One of them unfurled to human height and began hurtling pell-mell for the pumphouse, like an angry piece of night. It disappeared among the horses. Paz couldn’t risk the shot—it would be just as likely to hit one of the animals—but she had to warn the others.

  “Careful!” she shouted. “Someone else is out here!”

  Her father and Eli Ferrell were still standing in the doorway, and she could see that they’d heard her. Eli set off along the edge of the escarpment, while her father began to walk toward the horses, who were stamping about and snorting with disquiet.

  “Whoever’s there, just come out peaceable,” he said. “We don’t want trouble.”

  “No, no, no,” Paz said under her breath. Though she knew she was meant to stay back and cover the retreat path, this was her father, walking straight into danger. She began to climb back down the hill toward the trail. Her father said something and was quickly answered by a female voice, quavery with terror. Paz listened for the crack of a gunshot, but it never came. What was her father doing? And why had everything suddenly gone so terribly silent? A prickle ran up Paz’s spine, as if someone had touched a handful of snow to the back of her neck.

  She took off running, but the snarls of ivy at her feet were treacherous, and she had to slow down or risk tumbling. When she finally reached the trail, she crouched and crept forward into the heavy, pungent breath of the animals. She could hear the muffled movement of the strangers somewhere close by, but she didn’t care anymore, because here was her father, lying face-down in the dirt.

  “Da,” she said. A knife had been sunk deep in his neck. Around the edges of the blade, blood pulsed blackly out into the earth. “Da,” she said again, more loudly this time, though she knew he could no longer hear her.

  The grief loomed up inside her, a grizzly bear rising onto its hind legs, opening its mouth wide: to roar, to rend, to ruin. She shouted something, though she had no idea what it was, or if it had even been made up of words, and began sprinting for the pumphouse. Then a gun discharged and everything went dark. Paz raised Silverboy and aimed it at the pumphouse doorway, but there was no way to tell friend from foe. Someone crashed into her, knocking her onto her back. A fusillade of footsteps falling around her head. The jangle of horses being mounted. Barked commands. She sat up and fired a few times into the darkness.

  “Shit,” she heard Sheriff Okimoto say. “They cut the horses loose.”

  But Paz had tied up her own horse separately, up where she’d been on lookout. She sprinted uphill, sawing at the tether with her knife just to save the few precious seconds it would take to unpick the knot in the dark.

  “Move, you damned stupid animal!” she said, climbing up onto its back. The Honor and his people had a head start on her, but she could still hear them not far up the trail. She drew her gun again and fired—once, twice, three times—but it was no use. She was losing ground. Already her horse had begun gasping for breath; the creature had been pushed to its limit just getting her out to the pumphouse so fast.

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered in its ear.

  But there was nothing for it. The animal was already slowing, and a few minutes later, it gave up entirely.

  “Move!” she shouted. “Move!”

  When it refused to listen, she jumped down and took off running, not caring if she lost the horse or the rest of the posse, not even caring if she ended up dead. On and on into the night she ran, as fast as she could, until her legs turned numb and finally buckled beneath her. Sprawled out there in the hard, cold dirt, knees childishly akimbo, tears streaming down her face, she let out a scream, as loud as she had inside her. She screamed until her throat was raw and there was no breath left in her lungs, and then she kept on screaming. She hoped the Honor and his people were still close enough to hear that scream, and to fear the source of it.

  Eventually, she went back to the others, but only to tell them she’d be riding ahead on her own. Sheriff Okimoto started hollering something about obeying orders and chain of command, but she ignored him. Likewise did she ignore the voice inside her, the one that said she had a responsibility to return to Sophia and take care of her brothers. She had a higher calling now: to make the Descendancy pay for everything they’d taken from her.

  Over the course of the next week, she scarcely ate or slept, which was how she was able to outpace the rest of the posse and catch up with the Honor and his family even before they reached Wilmington. She was there when they got into town, and she followed them to the church where they met up with Honor Epley. She was there when they brought their injured man to see the town doctor, and when the pale, yellow-haired girl came running out with tears in her eyes. She was there a few seconds later, standing just outside the gate, when the boy blindsided her.

  And from the way
he looked at her in that very first moment—fear and desire and shame all swirling around in his big brown eyes—she knew what she had to do. She could already see herself flagging down the ministry wagon. She’d play up her country accent and flirt as well as she was able. When the opportunity arose, she’d file down the spindle on one of the wagon wheels, so it would snap at the slightest bump in the road. She’d make up some excuse to return to Wilmington, where she’d have left a message for the rest of the town guard to wait for her. Then she’d lead them back to the broken wagon and watch with a smile in her heart as the Honor and his fellow zealots bled out in the dirt.

  She would achieve her vengeance, and at the same time, her dream: Director Zeno would be so grateful, she’d have no choice but to admit Paz to the academy.

  “I’m chasing after someone,” the boy said, his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth.

  “Lucky girl.”

  She gave him a smile that promised the world.

  “I’m Clive,” he said.

  It just came to her, the perfect name for the perfect monster she was about to create. Its meaning was the same as her real name, the name her mother and father had given her on the day of her birth, their hearts full of blind hope, as if they had no idea what the world was really like.

  Peace.

  “Irene,” she said. “See you around, Clive.”

  2. Clive

  CLIVE LET OUT HIS BREATH as they passed beneath the Anchor’s Eastern Gate, waiting for the inevitable wave of relief to wash over him—only it never came. He was numb with exhaustion, too anxious about the future to celebrate the present, and he could tell most of the others were feeling the same way. Only Irene seemed to be genuinely delighted at their arrival.

  “Daughter be praised,” she whispered, gazing up at the massive stone arch overhead.

  Clive had forgotten that this would be her first time entering the capital. It was strange—though they’d been on the road together for nearly two months, he didn’t know her much better now than he had after that very first day. They’d never discussed the kiss they’d shared, and any further flirtation had been precluded by their circumstances. But she was still here—that was the important thing. Clive had told her again and again that she was free to go back to Eaton, and every time, she’d insisted she wanted to stay; what else could that mean except that she wanted to stay with him? When they’d reached Corning, at the foot of the Teeth, she’d sent a message back east, explaining to her family that she would be gone on official Descendancy business for the foreseeable future. Clive couldn’t even imagine how upset his own father would have been to receive a letter like that, but Irene was surprisingly unconcerned.