by S. C. Green
“I will.” May pulled her coat around herself, and with a flap and a flutter, transformed into her own beautiful bird and flew away.
“Where’s she going?” Raine demanded, her voice frantic. “Where have you sent my daughter?”
“She’s gone to find Alain,” I snapped at her. “Together, they’ll decide what to do about you and your friend, and the rest of us will abide by that decision. Right now, you’re coming upstairs with us.”
“But, why—”
“Because some bad men are coming here to turn us all into worm food, and while personally I’m fine if you get shot to bits for what you put those two through, I care about them both enough to try and save you. Now get going.”
Harriet jabbed at Raine’s arm with the barrel of her rifle. Raine gave me a pained look before turning on her heel and marching toward the entrance of the apartment block. Harriet strode after her, her gun pointed at Raine’s back.
I headed after them and glanced up. There, on the roof of a nearby skyscraper, I could just make out two tiny black dots perched along the edge. May and Alain, who had to figure out what Raine’s return meant to them, while I stayed down here with three trigger-happy whores, the last wraith in Petrified City, a crazy old man, a tiger, and my boyfriend’s fucking ex.
6
Raine
Sydney Cale glared at me from across the room, her dark hair half covering her narrowed eyes. I didn’t have to ask her how she knew Alain; that death stare told me everything I needed to know.
My stomach twisted as though her eyes really were piercing through my body. I’d spent ten years dreaming about the day I saw my family again. The thought of May’s soft skin against mine, of Alain’s intense eyes caressing my body, or their familiar voices and warm arms, kept me going through all those years in prison. I’d prepared myself for them being dead. I’d prepared myself for them being older, different even, but I’d never, ever contemplated the fact that they might hate me, or that Alain might have moved on.
How had my lover’s eyes turned so cold? How had my sweet little girl become this cruel, brave woman, willing to stand up against tigers and capable of aiming a gun at her own mother?
We stood on opposite sides of the old man’s apartment, an invisible, unspoken line dividing the room between us, with everyone else on the other side, as though I were a leper. I saw Red’s face poke out of the wall behind Sydney’s head, but neither she nor any of the others noticed him.
I caught his eye. He nodded at me, then slunk back into the wall. He was still looking out for me. I hoped he hadn’t heard what I’d said before, about the wraith being gone.
Boxes of junk filled every corner of the old man’s apartment, stacked up to the ceiling, their contents carefully labelled with block letters. Hub caps. Smartphones. Wooden spatulas. Legos. I remembered May used to love playing with Legos. The knife in my chest twisted deeper.
That girl I’d just seen … I was a stranger to her. I hugged my arms to my chest, but they ached to be around my daughter. She’d had a whole life, grown out of toys, grown into womanhood, and I hadn’t been here for it to help guide her through. I hadn’t put bandaids on her skinned knees, dropped her off to her first day of school at the Reaper Academy, given her ‘the talk’ about periods and relationships. Every tiny loss stabbed at my heart.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes again. I turned away, not wanting Sydney to see. I took a step toward the door, thinking I would step into the hall for some air. Behind me, the woman named Harriet leaned against a box of broom handles, pointing her gun at the floor in an non-threatening pose that was very threatening indeed.
“Going somewhere, sugar?” she asked, her lip curling.
“No, I—”
“Harriet.” Sydney sighed. “You can let her go outside if she wants. She’s not our prisoner. Personally, I don’t fucking care if the Dimitris get their hands on her, or that wraith of hers husks her soul out through her chest. Hell, maybe that friend of hers will take care of the Dimitris for us.”
“Don’t you want me to get you out of the dome?” I asked, not appreciating her wishes one bit.
“We’ll discuss it later, if you’re still alive then,” Sydney said briskly. “We’re here to get food, unless you happen to be hiding a casserole in that giant coat of yours.”
I shook my head glumly. How stupid was I? I should have thought to bring food with me. Of course there would hardly be any inside the dome. Maybe that was why May and Alain looked so drawn and pale.
Sydney glared at me again, and I felt worse than useless. She inclined her head toward the old man, and they held a whispered conversation. I glanced longingly at the door. Voices floated up from the street outside, angry male voices. Loud gunfire made me jump. Harriet held up her hand, indicating that I wasn’t to move.
Sydney stood. “Sharky has decided to trade with us. Harriet, give him your gun.”
Harriet yanked the weapon back behind her shoulder. “Don’t kid about that shit.”
“I’m not kidding. He’s giving us a valuable resource. We need to give him something in return. They don’t call him Sharky for nothing, and this is what he wants.“ Sydney held out her hand. “Hand it over.”
“Why does he need a gun? He’s got a fucking tiger.” Harriet directed her gun toward Pookie, who lay on a large pile of cushions in the corner, snoring loudly, one enormous paw wrapped around a filthy stuffed bear.
“Don’t you hurt Pookie!” The old man rose from the couch, fumbling for a battered stick he waved in Harriet’s face.
She lifted her elbow and knocked the stick aside. The old man wobbled off-balance and crashed into a pile of boxes. I wanted to help him, but my feet were rooted to the ground. The old man tried to pick himself up but froze as Harriet shoved the barrel in his face, her mouth twisted in a fierce scowl.
My ears buzzed. My stomach dropped down to my knees. A gun had wounded Jack. A gun had been directed at me to make sure I left the city. And now, this woman was waving one around the tiny room, her face red with rage and murder in her eyes. How had May come to be mixed up with this crazy girl? Why had May gone to her first, instead of her father?
Sydney shoved past the barrel and bent down to help the old man to his feet. “You’re not going to shoot anyone, Harriet. Pass the gun over.”
“This whole thing is pointless. I’m not handing a gun over to him. He could turn on us in a second. What’s to say he won’t?” Harriet whirled around, aiming the gun at Pookie. ”I could just shoot the tiger. We could eat her. It would sure beat those roasted rats.”
Rats? They were eating rats? I shuddered, the full horror of what May had had to endure inside the dome only just now sinking in.
It was her eighteenth birthday on Saturday. What was she going to have for her birthday treat, rat a la mode?
A raven zoomed through the window and landed on the barrel of the rifle. It unfurled its beautiful wings and croaked at Harriet.
I’d recognise those dark eyes anywhere. The bird was May. Gosh, she’d become so poised and majestic, so different from the tiny ball of fluff Alain had first taught to fly.
I longed to run to her, capture her in my arms, stroke her soft feathers, and whisper to her what a majestic creature she’d become. But the way Harriet was staring at her, those harsh features contorting, then relaxing into something that might’ve once been called a beautiful face, made me pause.
Harriet shot the old man a vengeful look, sighed, and said, “Fine.”
May nodded, then turned and flew back out the window.
Harriet lowered the gun, her face twisted in pain.
Sydney grabbed the gun from Harriet’s hands before she could change her mind and shoved the weapon into the old man’s hands. “Will that do you, Sparky?”
“It’ll do me well, Syd.” The man grinned. He wobbled to his feet, tucking the gun against his shoulder and feeling his way with his stick. He hobbled out into the hall and beckoned over his shoulder. “Follow me.
”
“I feel naked,” Harriet grumbled as she fell in line behind the old man.
“Thank your girlfriend later for me.” Sydney slapped Harriet on the shoulder.
Girlfriend? Had I heard that correctly? Did she mean they were close friends, or … was May in a relationship with that woman?
An overwhelming wave of grief washed over me. I sank against the doorframe. May really had grown up. In this dark place, she’d discovered things about herself I’d never even considered. I didn’t know my daughter at all.
Something jabbed me in the back. I whirled around. The girl, Julie, stood behind me, poking the barrel of her rifle into my back.
“Move it,” she snapped. “Just because Harriet doesn’t have a gun anymore don’t mean you’re out of trouble.”
I moved, my steps shaky as I contemplated what that bullet could do to me at such close range.
The old man led us up two flights of stairs. The balustrades had nearly rusted away, so we kept close to the wall as we climbed. On the top floor, we entered a short hallway stacked with open bags of fertilizer and compost – the kind you bought from a garden store – and some complex machine connected to two large tanks. I guessed it was some kind of water reticulation unit from the way it gurgled. Again, it occurred to me to marvel that people had survived in this cut-off city for ten years.
The old man clambered up another flight of steps and pushed open a metal door. We stepped through it after him.
All I’d seen so far of the city was wasted concrete buildings, creeping petrification, and crumbling, rusting steel. Now, I stood in the garden at the end of the world, amidst a paradise of colour and scent and light. The entire roof was covered with garden beds, each one brimming with leafy vegetables and bold flowers. From trees planted in old recycling bins, fruits dangled in front of our faces – bright red apples, round, ripe oranges, pears so large they looked almost comical. In the corner behind the fruit trees, a faint, rhythmic buzzing indicated a beehive.
I gasped. My mouth watered just looking at it all. I hadn’t eaten since the previous evening.
I turned to the old man. “You did this?”
He nodded. “Been tending this ‘ere garden since the dome came down over us.”
“It’s beautiful,” Julie breathed. Even Harriet looked impressed.
Sharky tossed a small wooden crate into Harriet’s arms. “Make yourself useful,” he barked, his gnarled fingers tightening around the barrel of his new rifle. “Fill this with fruit.”
Harriet and her two girls wasted no time plucking the ripest, juiciest apples and oranges, helping themselves to one each while they worked. I itched to help them and wrap my lips around one of those apples myself, but I didn’t. This food wasn’t for me. I wasn’t part of their group. I wasn’t wanted here. The gun resting against Julie’s shoulder made that fact perfectly obvious.
Sydney had clearly been to the garden before. She wandered between the rows of beds with Sharky, helping him to pick the choicest vegetables and fruit and placing them in a dented cardboard box. The old man reached down with shaking fingers, twisting snap peas off the vine, pulling out carrots by the bunch. When the box was bursting at the brim with bounty, he handed it over to Sydney.
“‘ere you are.” He grinned. “Come back when yer hungry again. I’ll make sure Pookie’s on her lead.” He turned to Harriet, patting the gun. “Send yer ‘ores to me, an’ I’ll feed ‘em up, too. I’ve more than enough.”
Somehow I doubted this guy tugging on the end of a tiger’s lead was going to make her do what she was told. I wondered who he meant by Harriet’s “‘oars”. Was she a rower? She definitely had the shoulders for it.
Harriet inclined her head, her hard mouth softening at the edges, just a tiny bit, as she steadied the brimming crate in her arms. “Thank you. I’ll be back with my girls and another gun.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “That’s me lass.”
We returned to the old man’s apartment, clutching our boxes.
Sydney peered cautiously through the curtains. “They’re still out there.”
“I’ll fix that.” Sparky grabbed Pookie’s lead.
She leapt to her feet, licking his arm. He bent down and whispered something in her ear, then unclipped her lead. Pookie gave a deep growl, then bounded toward the door.
I flattened myself against the wall, my heart leaping in my chest, but the tiger sped right past me, leaping down the stairwell and disappearing from view. A few minutes later, someone yelped. Then the screams began.
Harriet raced across the room and drew the curtain back, watching the carnage unfold from the window. I covered my ears and shut my eyes, but nothing could cover the sound of men being torn to pieces while their friends ran and yelled for their lives. The screams echoed against my skull, long after the street below fell silent.
Shaking, I withdrew my hands, my eyes flickering open. No one else in the room seemed as affected by the horrible violence. Harriet’s eyes danced with vicious glee. Sydney gave a satisfied smile. The old man clasped his hands together in triumph.
Pookie trotted back up the stairs and scratched at the door, demanding to be let in. Blood ran down her jaw, splattered across her beautiful striped coat. Was this the brutality Alain and May had dealt with these last ten years? No wonder their eyes held no warmth.
The familiar tug of two souls just released from their earthly bodies on the street below pulled at my veins. I knew the drag would only worsen the longer those souls were free to dwell here in the world of the living. But they would have to wait, or one of the other dome Reapers would have to take care of them. I couldn’t think about work now, not when I had found my family again.
I’m sorry, I thought, hoping the men’s souls could hear me. I’ll make sure you reach the Otherworld soon.
“The coast is clear,” Sydney declared as she checked the street from the window. “Let’s move.”
After saying our goodbyes to Sparky, we trudged back down to the street. Sydney and Harriet struggled under the weight of the food, but neither of them would allow me to help them carry the boxes.
As we emerged onto the deserted street and stepped over a large red stain on the pavement, a black raven flew up beside us. My heart soared as it circled our group, its beautiful plumage jet black against the grey dome. I instantly recognized the grace and beauty of May. I admired her smooth landing as she swooped down and settled herself on Sydney’s shoulder. She really had mastered flying. My chest contracted painfully. Sydney patted May’s frill, pausing to give me a look that could best be described as triumphant. She started off down the street.
“Follow us,” she snapped as she passed me. “And keep up. I’m not slowing down if you get yourself killed. Is your friend still around?”
“He’s up there.” I pointed.
Sydney’s head whipped around. Red stood on the balcony of an apartment block across the street, his legs swinging through the metal railing.
“If he comes within a mile of us, Alain and May will send him away,” she snarled. “And unlike the other wraith, I’ll make sure he never comes back.”
I wanted to ask why she thought that. Reapers could never keep wraith inside the underworld. That was the whole reason for the dome in the first place. But I could tell from Sydney’s pissed expression now wasn’t the time to ask.
“You won’t see Red again, not until you’re ready,” I promised. I gestured up at Red, and he disappeared from sight, slinking back into the building’s decaying facade.
Sydney shuddered. “I’d just started to feel safe again. I knew it was too good to last.”
While she was close, I reached up to stroke May, the way Sydney had done. May snapped her beak angrily and took off again, swooping around us in a wide arc. I heaved a sigh.
We took a long, meandering path through the city, and I had the chance to take in the extent of the decay. The streets were deserted, the roads torn up, cracks crisscrossing them like a spider’s web
. Some of the cracks had opened up into deep fissures, and bikes, trash cans, even cars had tipped inside, so they appeared to be in the process of being swallowed by the earth, clinging to the city as gravity dragged all of it into the depths.
And the buildings … They weren’t like the buildings I remembered. That same strange stone rot crept over them, a creeping petrification that made the facades bubble and drip, as though they were part of a cave network shaped by the path of water. Most of the lower windows had been smashed, and the doors hung off their hinges. I knew I was seeing ten years of human desperation, the breakdown of municipal pride, the architecture of anarchy.
The silence terrified me most. All my memories of the city were of the bustle around me, cars honking, sirens wailing, obnoxious people yelling into cell phones. Now, every clop of my boots against the broken road sounded in my ears like gunshots. The air sat still and heavy, clinging to me like sweat on a hot day. Everything about the city was eerie, alien, other.
May didn’t come closer. She continued to circle overhead, a shadow darting across my vision. I waved up at her, flashing her what I hoped was an apologetic smile. Not that a smile would be enough to make everything up to her, but I had to try. She didn’t come down.
We walked through the old suburb of Heavensgate, an area that had once been filled with boutique shopping and an excellent Greek district. Alain and I used to eat there all the time when we were dating. Now, windows were boarded up, and bullet holes splintered the decaying wood. Graffiti stained every surface, not scrawled words, but intricate drawings of loss and desolation. Sydney explained that this area was on ‘the Rim’ – the area closest to the edge of the dome. Odd how the city’s geography remade itself, the city intrinsically changed by the dome’s architecture.
“No one calls it Heavensgate anymore,” she said. “It’s ‘Hellsgate’ now.”
“That’s cheery,” I said.
