His blasphemy always made her nervous, as if the Grave Gods would hear and take retribution on him.
Perhaps they had.
As she looked around now, though, the shelves held only a handful of fish and a scattering of ragged clothes and other food scraps. One other item caught her eye: a square, dark object with knobs on the front and a broken dial. Naif had seen similar ones before in the Seal prayer rooms, and Joel had hidden a smaller version of the same in his bedroom under the floorboards. It was a radio. He’d listened for the Angel Arias on it, and known which night the barge would come in.
The Ixion code was embedded into the song at a frequency that only the young people, with their sharper senses, could hear. So Naif had listened for it after Joel had gone, and been ready. Without Joel’s radio she would not have known.
Naif heard a movement and looked away from the radio. A group of strange young people shuffled into the room and stood in the circle of light streaming in from the high windows. Each one, like Liam, had some kind of deformity.
They stared at Markes and Naif with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. Liam stood next to a girl who looked quite normal, except for one of her hands, which was a slick, black colour and the scaly texture of a bleetle’s back. Markes seemed too shocked to speak, so Naif gathered her wits. ‘Thank you for helping us.’
The group exchanged glances but no one spoke.
She tried again. ‘Liam said that Lenoir brought you here.’
Nothing.
Frustration knotted in her chest and she tried to unwind it. It was harder to do that now that she was no longer totally governed by her Seal upbringing. Her emotions came more freely since her Enlightenment; Lenoir had healed her as she lay dying but his act had bonded them and more. The Seal within her had been buried that day and she’d emerged as another person, as if some gate inside her had opened that could never be closed again.
‘I am Glev. Tell me where you go?’ said the girl next to Liam suddenly.
‘Grave North,’ said Markes.
‘Why?’
Naif gave Markes a warning glance but he deflected the answer to her. ‘I accompany my friend, Naif.’
Glev’s suspicious frown shifted to Naif.
‘Liam said that you are here because of Lenoir? Do you all know him?’ asked Naif.
Most of them nodded but Glev watched her intently.
‘Well, Lenoir and I are bonded. I seek information that will . . . help him. And others.’ Not the truth exactly, but not a lie either.
‘You?’
At any other time Glev’s incredulity might have been insulting, but Naif’s only concern was that the girl believed her.
‘I was injured and he saved my life. Now I seek to help him. There are things I must learn here. There is trouble on Ixion. Lenoir is in danger.’ If they thought she was here against Lenoir’s wishes then they may turn on her and Markes.
‘Tell us!’ demanded Liam.
They crowded closer, appearing eager for news of the island.
‘There’s a Riper called Brand who challenges Lenoir.’
‘The Scar Lady,’ said Glev, nodding as though she knew more than the rest.
‘Yes. Her and another we call Modai.’
Liam hissed. ‘Modai is the one who sent us to Danksoi.’
‘Modai withdrew all of you?’
They nodded.
‘What happened? Why are you here?’ asked Naif.
Their expressions became guarded and no one answered her question.
Instead Glev pointed to Liam. ‘We help Lenoir. You take them through the wall.’
Liam gave a slight nod. ‘Eat first then we go.’
In one accord, the group sat down where they were, and Liam gestured for Naif and Markes to do the same.
It should have been a relief just to sit but the silent watchful glances kept Naif ill at ease. Markes’s pensive expression told her he felt the same. Even so, he seemed surer of himself since returning to Grave, imbued with a new sense of determination.
A thought struck Naif then. What if Markes had another reason for coming back here? Something he’d not shared with her? What if he didn’t really have a friend who could help them?
As she considered that idea, a slight girl emerged from one of the drying stalls. She carried a large wooden board dotted with an assortment of food. Like the rest of them she bore a deformity, but unlike the rest, hers was on her face. She had an extra set of eyes low down on her cheeks. They blinked and watered and the effect was so alien, so repulsive, that Naif bit her lip to stop from exclaiming.
The girl placed the board in the centre of their circle and retreated behind the stall immediately.
Naif stared at the mix of seaweed strips, dough balls and an unrecognisable cooked meat on the plank of wood. The shape of the meat suggested one of the small creatures that lived on the grains that spilled from the Grave storage silos.
That thought, and the sight of the disfigured girl, stalled Naif’s appetite.
Liam pushed the wooden tray towards her and she took just a piece of fleshy grey seaweed. Markes did the same.
The tray then went back to the middle and the rest of them fell upon the food, tearing the hot meat apart with their fingers and tentacles.
The girl with the extra eyes returned with a smaller tray that held a collection of odd-sized containers. Liquid spilled from them as she knelt down.
‘Neva!’ Glev snapped. ‘’Ware!’
The girl blinked nervously, her eyelids fluttering out of sync with each other. Naif tried not to stare but found it impossible to draw her eyes away.
Conscious of the strangers’ scrutiny, Neva spilled more drink as she placed the tray on the floor. Glev slapped her across the back of the head for her clumsiness. She yelped and ran back to the stall.
Naif’s heart contracted with pity for Neva, and anger at the way Glev treated her.
Markes sensed her reaction and put his hand on her knee in caution. With his other hand he reached out, took one of the containers, and offered it to her.
She took it and sipped slowly. It was Grave water; slightly brackish. On Ixion the water had tasted purer. Even so, it eased her sore throat and helped quieten her nerves enough that she could speak normally.
‘I’m from Seal South and knew nothing of your existence. Please can you tell us what you are doing here?’
‘We watch this place for Lenoir,’ said Liam after exchanging a glance with Glev.
‘Why do you do that?’ asked Markes.
‘So we have a place to go since our change. Here we are our own. Run ourselves. As long as we watch for Lenoir, he’ll keep secret we survived.’
‘What is the change? Do you mean . . . ?’ Naif touched her own hand, to indicate Liam’s tentacles.
He bowed his head.
‘Did the change happen on Ixion? In the church of Danksoi?’ asked Naif.
‘’Nuff talk!’ snapped Glev. ‘You eat and go.’
Liam remained silent at her order and the group fell back to eating.
Naif took a bite of the seaweed. It had been soaked in something sweet, which gave it a bearable flavour. In between mouthfuls, she glanced surreptitiously around the circle. There were four girls and five boys. Most had altered limbs, although one boy’s chest appeared shiny and black, like a carapace, beneath his tunic. Naif recognised the look and texture of the skin. Each one of them, like Liam, had features of a Night Creature.
Something must have gone wrong with their withdrawal and Lenoir had brought them here. Why? And what did they watch for?
As she thought of Lenoir, the bond between them tugged. She felt his presence strongly, as though he might appear in the room with them.
Did Lenoir care for anything in the way she cared, she wondered. On Ixion he’d saved her life, given a party for her so that she might experience fun and beauty. He’d risked himself to protect her from the Night Creatures and seen her safely onto Ruzalia’s airship. Surely that was not the
act of a cold heart?
A cobweb of doubts spun across her thoughts as she listened to the involuntary grunts and swallows of the others eating.
When the food was finished Glev threw her scraps over her shoulder. She wiped her fingers across her tunic and made a sound. Neva scuttled out to collect the tray and disappeared with it, shovelling the dough crumbs into her mouth as she went.
Glev belched long and loudly and thumped her chest. ‘You go now with him.’ She gave Liam a shove.
He got to his feet.
Glev was clearly their leader. Naif had learned from the gangs on Ixion that there was always one who would lead. And another who would wish to take it from them.
She scanned the faces, wondering who that might be, and why she should even care to know.
Something told her, though, that she should. These outcasts managed to survive in Grave without the wardens’ knowledge. That itself was worthy and brave. But if Glev betrayed Naif and Markes, perhaps another among them would help.
Liam stood in front of her and Markes, his lips tight and cheeks flushed in anger at being ordered around.
He is the one, she thought.
‘Storm drain stop. Must go up here,’ said Liam, finally reaching up to pull back a grate.
Markes gave a groan of relief as he straightened his back and climbed out. Naif and Liam followed him and they found themselves alongside a grey stone mausoleum on the outside of the Seal compound. The watery sun told Naif it was halfway through the day already. Only a line of burial chambers separated her from the place she’d endured such pain to leave.
They hid in the line of low fir bushes that served as a boundary between one chamber and the next. To the back of them was a narrow cobblestone alley and to the front a grand road paved with sett stones.
Naif knew these chambers. She’d stared at them many times from behind the compound fence; had run past them in her escape, her obedience strip a fire of agony on her thigh. The one closest to her contained the bodies of the Raspart family. The girl who she’d walked to prayers with, Toola, was a Raspart. Next to the Rasparts was a chamber shared between cousins – Lensters, Jaspers and Conways.
Naif’s parents would be buried in something similar when their time came; a communal chamber favoured by the families of the less important citizens. Naif had seen their burial place once. It lay outside the most southern edge of the compound fence and was a low plain building with a single angel adorning the roof. No pillars. Or carving. Or spires. No waft of freshly cut funeral flowers, just the four walls and simple preservation drawers that would keep them perfect for the Seal afterlife.
Seals weren’t blessed with the wealth of the Elders and their burial chambers tended to be overcrowded and functional. When a Grave Elder died, it was an important occasion and prayers were said for a full month afterwards with food and flowers served every day in the chamber for mourners.
Naif had never gone back to look through the fence at her family mausoleum again. Joel had called it a meat house but Naif had just found the idea sad.
‘Body cart come soon. You go on it,’ whispered Liam.
‘With the dead bodies?’ Shock made Markes speak too loudly.
‘Take you to Grave North wall without wardens see you.’
Naif thought about Liam’s idea. The dead carts ferried bodies between homes, the Deadtaker’s and the chambers all across Grave. No one ever stopped them out of respect for the dead.
‘How?’ she asked softly.
‘Cart comes back here.’ He pointed to the alley. ‘Hide under-tray.’
The under-tray was a sliding second tray which the dead carts sometimes used if the families couldn’t afford coffins for transport.
She swallowed hard. ‘But they’ll be . . . the dead . . .’
‘No!’ Markes finished for her. ‘I’m not lying next to a dead body.’
Liam gave him a disgusted look and then shrugged. ‘You want get to wall?’
Naif looked at Markes. ‘We could wait until dark and walk, if you know the way.’
He nodded quickly. ‘I know the way. But our clothes will give us away.’
They were silent for a bit while Liam continued to look unimpressed by their squeamishness.
‘We could take some clothes from the chamber,’ said Naif.
‘From the dead?’ asked Markes.
‘It would be better to wear their clothes than to lie next to them on the cart,’ she reasoned.
He considered it for a moment and then nodded.
Naif looked at Liam. ‘Thank you, Liam, but we’ll make our own way. Thank Glev too. We’re grateful that you helped us and shared your food.’
Liam made a hissing noise between his teeth and his face contorted. ‘Fou! Even the home-women know better when to take help. You ride dead cart or wardens catch you. Take you to Hold House. Make you tell all.’
His sudden anger startled Naif. It reminded her of how Suki had reacted when they’d first met the White Wings gang leader, Kero, on Ixion. He’d been offhand with her and her fury had come from nowhere.
Liam’s look turned to disgust and he began to crawl back through the bushes towards the grate. As he retreated, a realisation struck Naif. She knew what home-women meant . . . where it meant. ‘Your home . . . is it a place called Stra’ha?’
He stopped and swivelled. ‘How you know?’
‘Did you go to Ixion to meet a girl called . . . I don’t know what her name was then but she calls herself Suki now. She trapped a draculin to fly there. Her hair is dark and she . . . speaks her mind. You made a blood pact with her.’
Liam’s eyes widened. ‘Soueta. You know my Soueta?’
‘She’s my friend too and she’s still there. She told me about you,’ said Naif.
‘She say what?’
‘She said she’d come there to meet you. She looked for you whenever we went out.’
Liam’s face flamed so red that Naif thought he might cry. Instead he ground his fist into his palm and said loudly, ‘Soueta.’
Naif glanced about. The street in front of her was quiet but behind the chambers, inside the Seal compound, she could hear raised voices. Her parents would be working just a short distance away. The thought made her stomach churn.
‘Why didn’t you meet her? How did you end up here?’ she asked Liam quietly.
His expression closed up at the question. Even away from Glev he was scared to share what had happened to them. Yet he stayed where he was.
‘Please,’ said Naif. ‘Help us understand.’
After a long moment he gave a slight nod. ‘Ripers withdrew me . . . early. I cause trouble, they say. Not go well. I end like this.’ He waved his Night Creature hands. ‘Creature eat me up. Suck from me. But Liam strong.’
‘In Danksoi?’
A curt, angry nod.
‘What trouble did you cause? Did you join one of the gangs?’
‘No gang. Many ask though. Liam good fighter with hands . . . before this.’ A flash of pride changed quickly to desolation as he stared at his tentacles.
‘Why then?’
‘Modai not like Liam. Make bad for me.’
‘Liam, can you tell us about inside Danksoi? Markes and I saw there but the Night Creatures attacked. We had to get out quickly.’
He trembled a little. ‘They put me with them. Here and here.’ He touched his neck and wrist and thigh. ‘Then all stop remember. Wake up sick . . . with these.’ He held out his hand. ‘Lenoir come and take me away. Say to go here, and watch for him. He say others kill me.’
‘Other Ripers will kill you?’
He nodded. ‘No more can speak properly. Think right but not speak.’
‘Withdrawal affected your speech as well?’
Another nod. ‘’Nuff talk now. You get on dead cart or warden find you.’
‘No,’ said Markes who’d been listening intently. ‘I won’t lie next to the dead.’
She gave him a sympathetic look. After Lottie, she felt the same.
‘Stupid you,’ said Liam.
‘We’ll wait here a while. And go when it’s dark,’ Naif said firmly.
Liam shrugged. ‘Soueta much brave than you.’
‘She is,’ Naif agreed. She missed her friend.
Without another word to them, Liam dropped back down into the tunnel and pulled the grate closed after him.
Neither Markes nor Naif spoke for a while after he left.
Naif shifted closer to the wide sett street so she could see more clearly through the thick bushes, and settled cross-legged to watch. Markes moved alongside her so that they were almost touching. For the first time since her party on Ixion they were alone together, and she wished it was not here, outside the burial-places of their people.
‘Do you believe him about Danksoi?’ asked Markes after a while.
‘Liam? Yes. And I think he only told us because we knew Suki.’
‘What we saw means they’re using us to make more Night Creatures?’
‘I think so. But it doesn’t quite make sense. There are already hundreds of them. Why do they want more? And something Lenoir said . . .’
‘What?’
Naif shrugged. ‘He talked about them as “us”. Like he was one of them. I don’t know what he meant. But what’s happened to Liam and Glev and the others . . . It’s awful.’
‘And the little girl, Neva,’ said Markes.
Naif shuddered. ‘Even they treat her badly.’
‘Lenoir has left them here to scrounge for themselves and spy for him,’ said Markes in disgust.
Naif found herself defending him. ‘Liam said the other Ripers would have killed them.’
‘You mean that’s what he told them?’
‘We should look for clothes,’ said Naif, changing the subject. ‘It’s only a few hours until dark. We should be ready to go straight away. We’re wasting time by waiting here.’
‘I won’t ride with the dead.’
Naif nodded. ‘I know. But are you sure your friend will help us?’
‘She will,’ said Markes grimly.
Angel Arias Page 7
