Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

Her purse nestled in the front passenger wheel well, and she leaned over, dug out a handkerchief, and blew her nose. She let the purse thud back to the well mat. Then she threw the car into reverse, backed out, cut left and drove. She passed the courthouse, a jumble of civilian and patrol cars; then the last bar and she was in open country, heading northwest.

  Everything bad started with Isaiah. What she’d never told anyone, not even Father Gillis, was that months before he died, Isaiah had . . . changed. He’d become suspicious, morose. The night before Isaiah died, they had an awful fight, hurling words that cut like jagged glass. And then, the next day, Isaiah was dead.

  She remembered Hank Ketchum, hat in hand, framed against the darkness beyond her kitchen door, yellow light puddling at his feet and glinting off his deputy’s star. She and the children were clustered around the kitchen table, and she’d just brewed another pot of coffee when the flash of headlights caught her eye and she’d turned, seen the patrol car bouncing down the drive. No flashers. No siren. And . . . she just knew.

  An accident. That’s what Hank and Old Doc said. But there was more to it than that, she knew. But what?

  About ten kilometers out, she came to a fork and continued northwest. In ten more klicks, she spied a small block of businesses: a gas station, a pizza place, and an auto chop shop on the right, and on the left, a fruit stand (closed for the season), a vacant storefront that had once been an ice cream place, and a two-story redbrick building housing a bar on the ground floor. The bar’s holosign was black, but she knew the name well enough: Good Time Charlie’s. She slowed, then swung around back into the bar’s parking lot. She slid left of the bar’s back door and killed the engine.

  A black wrought iron fire escape led to another door on the building’s second floor, and she craned her neck to scan the second-story windows. The shades were drawn.

  The fire escape was steep, and gravity grabbed at her body and her purse—the weight of the world pulling her down. The door at the top of the stairs was black-painted metal. She listened, heard nothing, but the apartment beyond didn’t feel empty. She rapped on the door. More silence. She knocked again, and then heard something shambling up, the thunk of a bolt. The door squalled open, releasing a puff of air that smelled of cigarettes and stale beer.

  The woman was about twenty-five, with tousled brown hair and murky brown eyes. She wore jeans and a too-tight, V-neck, short-sleeved tee that accentuated a pair of melon-like breasts. Her face was lean and hungry-looking, but she was a little thick around the middle. Her feet were bare. She pinched a lit cigarette between the index and second finger of her right hand. “Scott’s not here,” she said.

  Hannah cleared her throat. “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “No.” The woman took a drag from her cigarette then jetted smoke out of the right corner of her mouth. “He didn’t say where he was going.”

  “Was he here yesterday? Was he here last night?”

  “Yeah, he was here. He worked the bar.”

  “What time did he get in?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know. I’m his mother, Grace, and I should think . . .” Hannah let the sentence dangle.

  Grace inhaled more smoke, her breasts swelling, held the smoke then let it go. “You should think what?” The words rode on puffs of smoke. “That Scotty ought to get Mommy’s approval every time he goes out?”

  “I have a right to know.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re his stepmother, not his wife.”

  “You’re not his wife either.”

  “Maybe not.” Grace hitched up a shoulder and let it fall. “But then again he’s sleeping with me, not you.”

  Hannah’s stomach iced with fury. “Why can’t you leave? I’d give you money.”

  Grace’s eyes were cool. “I don’t suppose it matters that I love Scott.”

  “You slut!” Hannah raised the clenched fist of her right hand. Shook it in Grace’s face. “You . . . you don’t love my son! You think that getting pregnant, you own him? You’re just using him, blackmailing him.”

  Grace snorted. “Oh, yeah, right. I got pregnant just so I could live in this dump. Relax, Mommy. Maybe I’ll miscarry. Or maybe I’ll get an abortion. Maybe—”

  “Blasphemy!” Without thinking, Hannah smacked Grace’s left cheek as hard as she could. Her hand stung with the blow and Grace staggered, grabbed for the door to keep from falling.

  Then she was back on her feet, hurtling out of the apartment. Grace was fast and strong, and she shoved Hannah back against the fire escape. The wrought iron railing dug into Hannah’s spine, and still Grace kept coming. For one, terrifying instant, Hannah saw blue sky as her back arched, knew she was going over the edge . . . and then Grace had her by the throat and jerked Hannah forward until they were eye to eye.

  “You hit me again, I swear I’ll kill you.” Grace’s face was blotchy with the imprint of Hannah’s fingers. She still had the cigarette, and now she held the glowing tip at the corner of Hannah’s left eye. “I’ll burn your eyes out, one at a time. And then I’ll burn you other places, Hannah, and I’ll take a long, long time.”

  The cigarette was so close, Hannah heard the paper crackle and felt heat. Frantic, she tried jerking away but then Grace tightened her fingers, and Hannah’s throat began to close off. Panicked, she choked, flailed, swung her fist again but Grace ducked.

  “Don’t.” Grace’s teeth bared in a feral grin. “Don’t, or I’ll kill you right now.”

  “Can’t . . .” Hannah’s lungs burned. “Can’t . . . br . . . ee . . .”

  Suddenly, Grace let go. Released, Hannah staggered, grappling for the railing to keep from falling down the stairs. When she could get her breath again, she sobbed, “I’ll t-tell . . . wa-wait until Sc-Scott . . .”

  “One word, Hannah, and you’re dead.” Grace’s voice was flat. “You make one move to take away my Scott, and I’ll kill you, Hannah. You won’t even see me coming.” She backed toward her door. “Or Scott will. You don’t know your stepson, Hannah, but I do and I’ll let you in on a little secret. Your sweet, innocent Scotty? He’s not such a good little boy anymore.”

  “What do . . . what do you mean?” Hannah’s throat convulsed. “What have you done to him?”

  “No, no.” Grace smiled, not nicely. “The question is what has Scotty done?”

  11

  When Sarah banged out of the house an hour later, Noah pushed out of bed. He was light-headed, and the room spun, but he made it to the bathroom. His skin crawled with sweat, and he felt oily. He was too freaked to check under the bandage.

  Washing his teeth and taking a shower made him feel a little better, except he couldn’t get warm. Shivering, he tugged on jeans, heavy socks, a button-up shirt because of his arm, and a bulky wool cardigan. He tottered downstairs, still feeling woozy. Debated about eating but didn’t have an appetite.

  He tried Joey on link, audio only. Joey’s mom said he was out at soccer practice, and then when she started in about the night before, he told her he had to go, and clicked off. He debated about calling Troy. Troy’s mother would be out because she was almost always “out,” either out as a waitress at Ida’s, out drinking, or—literally—out: dead drunk and sleeping it off.

  No matter what, I gotta call Troy. We got to get his bike back.

  Troy’s mother was out—grocery shopping. Relieved, Noah switched to full vid and then got worried all over again. Troy’s face was fish-belly white, with purple smudged under his eyes. He had on an old pair of glasses held together at the bridge with duct tape.

  “You look crummy,” Troy said.

  “So do you. Did you get into trouble?”

  Troy’s mouth curled. “Mom was so worried, she didn’t even notice that I wasn’t home in time to eat. What about you?”

  “I’m grounded, probably forever.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  “Hurts.” Noah didn’t want to get into it. “You heard about the car fire? You think
it was the same guy?”

  “Yeah.” Troy’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Even if it isn’t, I got to go back and get my bike. If the guy who killed him comes looking . . .”

  “I know. I’ll come with you.”

  “But you’re grounded.”

  “My mom works the shop today. She won’t be back until after five. It’s”—he squinted over at the wall chronometer—“almost ten-thirty. Plenty of time.” Then he thought of something. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “How are you going to get there? Your bike’s out there, and I don’t think I can steer so good with my arm racked up. Joey’s at soccer, and he’ll be gone all afternoon.”

  “Maybe we should just tell Joey’s dad.”

  Noah shook his head. “Too late for that. Besides, Joey’s the one who stole the cigarettes. He’ll really get grounded for life.”

  “We don’t have to tell about that.”

  “I’ll bet they got ways of finding out. Besides, if his dad finds out we saw and didn’t tell, then they get us for withholding evidence. My mom would kill me.”

  “Okay.” The way he said it, Noah knew that Troy wasn’t okay but would go along. Troy said, “I’ll take my mom’s bike. All I have to do is lower the seat a little bit.”

  “But then her bike will be gone,” Noah pointed out. “That’s no good.”

  “She’ll never notice. Anyway, it’s better than leaving mine, right? Besides, you got a better idea?”

  Noah didn’t. They agreed to meet at the cemetery in two hours, and then clicked off.

  * * *

  Time to kill.

  He wished there was someone to talk to, even his sister. But what he really wanted was an adult, someone who could tell him what to do and how not to be afraid. Maybe Scott . . . but if his mother found out he’d called or gone to see his stepbrother, she’d have a stroke.

  He crawled back upstairs, his arm complaining with every step. Instead of going to his room, he turned left, went to the end of the hallway and stood before his parents’—no, his mom’s room. A knotted string dangled from the ceiling, and now he grabbed that with his left hand and pulled down a panel with folding steps.

  The attic was cold and smelled of dust, old cardboard and chilled steel. After his father died, his mother packed everything into boxes and stored them here. She even asked Sheriff Ketchum to get a few men together and move his father’s gun safe into the attic. That had taken a whole day: unpacking all the guns and ammo, and then taking out the attic window and winching the safe up the side of the house. Noah had gone into the attic a few times over the past few years, usually when he really got to missing his dad, to huddle in the dark. But today, he sensed that something was . . . different and, after another moment, he knew what. One of the boxes was open.

  Noah eased down, squatting by the cardboard container. He ran the tip of his left finger under a flap and levered the cardboard back. He frowned. These clothes were unfamiliar. When he riffled the stack, he heard the crinkle of pryolene pouches. He gently tugged a corner of one pouch, and his breath caught.

  The shirt was military blue. Butter yellow rank insignia decorated the collar. Above the left breast pocket was a small embroidered insignia—a whorl of ten white stars cut by the tail of a comet set against a black background—and the name of a militia unit. Other pouches contained military trousers, a dress tunic, a pair of black boots with the outlines of his father’s toes visible against the buffed leather. But it wasn’t until Noah bent over to replace the pouches that he spied a square of pryolene wedged beneath a bottom flap. He teased out the pouch and held it to the light.

  The medal was a burnished five-pointed gold star within a circlet of gold-veined, dark blue enameled oak leaves arranged in pairs, two between each of the star’s five points. In the center of the star, also in gold, was a portrait in profile that Noah recognized immediately: Devlin Stone. The star dangled from a golden crossbar upon which the word GUARDIAN was cast. The entire medal hung from a length of sky-blue ribbon, with the ten stars, blue disc, and gray ribbon of the Republic embroidered above the point to which the star was attached.

  Why did his father have a Republic medal? There hadn’t been any action on Denebola that he knew about. And what did “guardian” mean? Guarding what?

  Finally, he put all the clothes back, piece by piece. But he slipped the pouch with the medal into his hip pocket. He just wanted it.

  He’d pushed up and was about to back down the attic stairs when his father’s gun safe caught his eye. Odd. He’d have sworn the last time he snuck up here boxes were wedged up against the door. But now he tracked the entire door, all the way down to the seam along the bottom edge. When they’d moved the safe, his mother had to call a locksmith to come and open it because only his father knew the combination. She’d had the locksmith program in a new code, and now she was the only one who knew that. So—his mother? But why? She hated guns. Why she’d kept his dad’s was a mystery.

  This is getting a little weird.

  The safe was solid twenty-centimeter steel two meters tall and one wide and painted the color of money. A rearing seven-point Morin odopudu was embossed in gold above a five-spoke gold-plated wheel. A combination digital lock was set at shoulder height left of the wheel. Enter the code, then twirl the handle to open the safe.

  He didn’t know the code. But . . . Noah reached out with his left hand, hesitated, then grasped the handle and jerked it counterclockwise, thinking the whole time:

  It’s locked, you watch, it’s gonna be locked and . . .

  A perceptible thunk. The lock disengaged. He pulled, and the safe’s door glided open on smoothly oiled, soundless hinges, releasing an odor of gun oil and steel.

  The interior of the safe was carpeted in a deep, rich green the same color as the safe itself. A door-mounted rack held shotguns and rifles, and his eyes skipped over his own Erral Colt that his mother had confiscated, his father’s pump Winchester Astro, and more rifles but . . . Noah frowned. The rifles were out of order. He knew just how they ought to line up: from eldest to youngest. His father’s Astro should’ve been on the far left. But the Astro had been moved and traded out for Scott’s old Tharkad Griffin.

  There were four carpeted shelves for gun cases and ammunition, and again Noah had the same sense of things being moved, replaced, taken away again, shifted. He chewed on his lower lip then flipped up the latches of a case he recognized at a glance. He lifted the lid, and a smell of oiled wood pillowed out. The case was lined with foam cut to the gun’s contours. A soft beige chammy covered the gun, and when he lifted the cloth, he saw his father’s service weapon, a stainless steel seven-shot revolver with walnut grips. He stared at the gun a long time, then carefully rewrapped it, thumbed the latches shut and was replacing the case when he noticed that another had been left open.

  He knew what was in that case. He’d only seen it a couple of times, but he remembered: a .70 mm AE Skye Talon. A cannon—that was what Scott used to called it. A really, really big gun.

  He also knew when he hefted the case that the gun was gone. The case was too light. But he looked anyway. Then he pawed open a box of ammo and stared at seven empty slots.

  Seven shells missing. And the gun. From a safe for which no one had the combination.

  Except his mother.

  12

  Saturday, 14 April 3136

  1300 hours

  “Maximilian Youssef,” Boaz said, pronouncing the last name YOU-cheff. A holo of Boaz’s face hovered in a tower of light over Ketchum’s desk. The deputy had been assigned to run down the car’s serial number. The serial number had bounced from the rental offices in Farway to New Bonn spaceport. “Rental place at New Bonn says Youssef picked the car up three days ago on a transport inbound from Slovakia. The agent there says he remembers the guy because he tried to talk him into a newer model Avanti hover on a promo deal. But Youssef wouldn’t budge. Said he had to have a car-car. Thing is, when we ran Youssef’s planeta
ry ID, there’s no background info at all.”

  “An alias?” Ketchum asked.

  “Looks like it. And the other thing, Hank, this guy Youssef had a ticket outbound for day after tomorrow, first thing in the morning. No way that this guy would head west for the mountains. He’d never make it back in time.”

  After Boaz clicked off, Ketchum sat back with an irritable groan. He’d taken off his hat, and a ridge showed where the brim had squeezed his reddish-blond hair. “We’re no better off than when we started.”

  “That’s not true,” Ramsey said. He leaned his right shoulder against a wall opposite Ketchum’s desk and adjacent to a coffee maker squatting on a nicked side table. The carafe was half full of coffee that smelled like toxic waste. Typical cop coffee. “We know he came from Slovakia and was traveling under an alias. So either he was hiding from someone here, or running from someone there.” Ramsey thought. “You said there were a bunch of people with ties to Slovakia, right? Anyone mention family coming recently?” When Ketchum shook his head, Ramsey said, “How about not so recently?”

  Ketchum scratched chin stubble. “I could ask around. My wife’s from Slovakia . . . well, her grandmother on her mom’s side. But I don’t think that’s it.”

  * * *

  The second and third calls came fifteen minutes later: deputies reporting in, their canvasses not turning up much. The fourth call came at 1:45 p.m.

  Either the connection was better, or the Denebola Bureau of Investigation had excellent communications equipment. DBI Special Agent Garibaldi’s holo was so crisp, he looked stenciled. He was like all government men: square, fit, impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and red tie, and possessed of a supercilious air of superiority. When he spoke, he did so with the exaggerated concern of a schoolteacher lecturing a slow student. “The reason this request is so important is because it is so unusual.”

  “How’s that?” Ketchum asked. His tone was polite, but he fidgeted. “Sounds just like a request for information to me.”