by S. C. Green
Raine was sprawled out on the couch where May had been lying the night before. The half of her long hair that wasn’t shaved hung lank against her pale face. She emitted a loud, choking snore. A black raven sat on the open windowsill, its beak tucked into its wing, and its tiny body expanding and contracting with every breath.
May had given her mother her bed. That small gesture caused my chest to ache. It was happening already. Raine was taking back what was hers. Ash she should, with May at least.
But that wasn’t even the most surprising thing. Harriet sat against the door, her gun across her knees, talking in low voices with Raine’s pet wraith as if they were old buddies. The wraith hovered beside her, his legs disappearing through the floor, his arms gesturing wildly. He whispered a frantic monologue.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded, my stomach tightening. This felt so not right.
The wraith looked up, and upon seeing me, disappeared through the shut door.
“You scared him away,” Harriet said, her tone scolding.
“What are you doing? You were supposed to be guarding him, not making friendship bracelets with your new BFF!”
“We’ve just had a little talk,” Harriet said with narrowed eyes. “While you were all asleep – woman to wraith. I think we’re all on the same page now.”
“And?”
“And I think this guy is okay.”
“Based on?”
Harriet grinned. “Have you ever had a conversation with a wraith that didn’t start and end with him trying to husk you?”
I lifted an eyebrow, remembering the horrid rasping voice of the Mayor, the wraith who had orchestrated the recent attacks around the city. “Good point.”
“Red told me a lot about what’s outside the dome and everything he remembers about this chemical plant. It’s not much – the guy really can’t fixate on memories the way we can – but I think we can find what we need.”
I sighed. “Are you sure this plan is a good idea? I know the Reapers are all for it, but I just don’t want to bring something outside the dome we can’t control. It’s bad enough having this wraith tagging along.”
“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.” Harriet stood and hoisted her gun onto her shoulder. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go find ourselves some radioactive goop.”
10
Raine
“I’m just going to get some air,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible as I set down my chipped cup on the coffee table.
Everyone was awake now and standing around the room, Alain, May, and I all in human forms. Even Harriet’s two girls had returned. The place felt claustrophobic, and it smelled like a toilet. I guessed with water in short supply, none of the dome dwellers had taken a shower in months, if not years. Reapers were able to preen their feathers in bird form and keep relatively clean that way. But there was nothing like a good old-fashioned soak with some scented candles, a glass of wine, and a really filthy book. I used to complain to Jack all the time about the lack of a tub in the station. Two years ago on my birthday, he rigged one up with an old claw foot bath he’d dug out of the rubble and a small solar array.
Jack. Tears pricked in my eyes as I remembered his Ken-doll good looks and charming smile. With a start, I realised I hadn’t even thought about looking for his sister Lacey. As soon as I’d found May, all thoughts of helping him flew straight out of my head.
You left him all alone with a bullet wound in his leg, and you haven’t even given him a single thought since you got inside, I admonished myself. Guilt surged inside me, burning my veins. I rubbed my arms, wishing the pain was real, that I had some way to punish myself for what I’d done.
I hope you’re okay. I hope they haven’t found you. You were such a good man, and you were so kind to me. I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you deserved.
I glanced around the room, at all these broken people who managed to find love and hope and friendship in this dark place, at my lover and my daughter who had found a life for themselves despite what I’d doomed them to endure. I was the only one among them who carried this guilt, and it was eating me up. I wanted so badly to put things right, to undo the last ten years, but I couldn’t, and nothing would ever make up for that.
If we managed to get out of the dome alive, I’d take them all for a bath. Even Sydney. Especially Sydney.
For the last hour, we’d been arguing over the plan. ‘We’ meant everyone else, because when I tried to say something, no one shut up and allowed me to speak. It was as if my opinions were irrelevant by default. I was about to start yelling when Red poked his torso through the door and beckoned me to follow him outside.
No one else had seen him. I told the others I wanted some air, not expecting anyone to hear me. Or care.
Sydney waved me away with a flip of her hand as if I were some troublesome fly. Perhaps that was exactly what I was.
“Fine,” she said. “Just don’t go out on the street. We can’t give this location away.”
“I won’t. I’ll just stay in the hall.” I shut the door behind me, instantly deadening their arguing. I took a deep breath. That was better.
Red stood at the end of the hall, his feet floating a couple of inches above the beige carpet. He looked somewhat sheepish, as sheepish as was possible for a wraith to look.
“That was quite a revelation you made yesterday,” I said.
“I know.” He bowed his head as though he were ashamed. “I’m sssorry I couldn’t ssspeak to you firssst. I wasss going to get you alone, but then I had to ssstep in when I did, before you left the dome.”
“Are you okay, Red? You just found out you were killed. Your death wasn’t an accident. That’s got to be a little disturbing.”
He shrugged. “I can’t undo what has been done.”
“Is there any more information you can give me about where to find the chemical? It’s a pretty big factory.”
Red’s blackened mouth set in a line. “I remember the finished immortium was ssstored in sssmall white drumsss. There were shelvesss and shelvesss of them. But I don’t remember where they were held. I don’t remember anything elssse. Just an image of thossse drumsss, and how they made me feel.”
I narrowed my eyes while I leaned against a wall. One glance at it, though, and I immediately pushed myself off. “How did they make you feel?”
“Angry. Afraid. I think that’s what we talked about at the meetingsss.”
“What meetings?”
“In that room, where we came through the dome.” Lines furrowed across his face. “I remember raisssed voices. Men arguing. And sssomething elssse.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” He hung his head. “Just … a feeling of dread. I can’t see anything clearly.”
“That’s okay, Red. You’ve done enough.” I wanted to comfort him somehow, but a pat on the shoulder would pass right through him. “I’m sorry to say you probably won’t get so much as a thank you from this lot.”
“That isss to be expected.” He glanced down at a patch of what was likely dried blood on the crumbled tile. “Raine?”
“Yeah?”
“If you get the chemical, could you maybe use a little tiny bit just on Annabelle?” His bright blue eyes bore into mine. “We could sssee what happensss to a cremated body.”
“It won’t work, Red. All my research showed the corpse has to be at least somewhat intact to give the wraith form.”
“I promissse we won’t husssk anyone. Pleassse, we can try. I’m just ssso lonely—”
The door burst open. Sydney barged through, her eyes flicking between Red and I suspiciously.
“Are you and your pet wraith conspiring against us?” she snapped.
“His name is Red,” I shot back. “And ‘conspiring against you’, really? This isn’t some thriller movie. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m an enemy.”
“Don’t make the mistake of telling me what to think,” she hissed with
a finger aimed at me. “You are only alive because Alain believes you’re trustworthy. The second I doubt that, you’re dust.”
The door behind her creaked open, and a dark figure moved behind her.
“Sydney.” Alain placed his hand on her shoulder.
He appeared to be a sobering influence because she closed her eyes and relaxed enough to lose some of her bite. When she opened them again, she pressed her hand against the wall. Brave girl.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Are you and the wraith coming?”
“Of course they are,” Harriet said as she stormed out the door, her gun poised at her shoulder. “This was all her idea.”
May entered the hall next, ignoring everything in my general direction.
“We’re coming.” I followed them down the stairs, hoping May might turn back to look at me. But she kept her head down, her dark hair curtaining her face as she focused on the ground in front of her. Perhaps I’d been reading too much into her offer of the sofa after all.
As we emerged into the grey light of the street, May and Alain transformed into their bird forms and flew above us.
“They’re the scouts,” Sydney explained. She seemed to have calmed down from her flaring outburst at me in the hall. “We have to watch out for the Dimitris.”
“Who are the Dimitris?” I asked.
“They’re a gang, the most notorious gang out here on the Rim. That’s the perimeter, closest to the edge of the dome. They gained a lot of power through controlling the trade of food, alcohol, fuel, drugs, and sex. Most everyone else inside the dome got picked off by the wraith over the last couple of weeks, but the Dimitris have the resources to stay hidden to protect themselves. They know we’re out here, and they are pissed as hell at me because I freed a house of their sex slaves and slaughtered a couple of their favourite sons in the process.”
My eyes bugged out of my head. “You really did that?”
“Sure.” Sydney shrugged as if freeing women from sexual slavery was something she did every day.
Another flare of shame assailed my body. This woman had been fighting not just for her own life, but for others too. I could barely change a bandage without throwing up.
“Harriet was one of them,”Sydney continued. “She did most of the actual slaughtering. She’s got at least twenty girls holed up in a small tunnel beneath the IKEA megastore who she’s trying to protect.”
Oh, Harriet’s “oars.” Now I understood. I shook my head at my own logic while a chuckle threatened to trip out. “Why is she here so much, then?”
Sydney nodded toward May, who soared ahead of us, her graceful wings dipping as she dived around the next corner.
“Oh.” There was the confirmation I was after. “Right.”
“You disapprove?”
“It’s not that at all,” I said hurriedly. This was the most civil conversation we’d had since I arrived. I didn’t want to ruin it. “I’ve been thinking of nothing but May for the last ten years, but I guess I’d been stuck in time, clinging to a memory of her when she was a girl. Now she’s a woman, turning eighteen in just a couple of days. It’s just hard to wrap my head around.”
“I guess. It’s hard for me to imagine missing all that.” Sydney touched her stomach again. “Did you notice those two getting friendly?”
She pointed up ahead to where Red and Harriet led the way, their heads bent together in whispered conversation.
“Yeah.” A twinge of unease tiptoed through my gut, though I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. “That’s odd.”
We walked together in silence, deeper into the heart of the dome. Around us, the buildings grew taller. Towering apartment blocks soared towards the grey heavens, all the lower windows shattered. Creeping petrification wound its way around street lamps and support pylons. The cars piled up on the street corners became more expensive models than the heaps of junk we’d passed already.
Sydney explained that the rich once lived in these suburbs, collectively known as “the Hub”. She told me she used to be a thief, working her way through the apartments and plush offices of the rich and husked, taking back whatever spoils she could to be sold on the black market in the Rim.
“That’s how Alain and I met,” she said. “He had me arrested so he could keep me safe and then waited for me to break out.”
I laughed. “That sounds like Alain. He once locked me in a supply closet for a day just so he could set up a surprise birthday party for me in the courtyard.”
The memory scorched itself across my mind. Alain clutched May’s tiny hand – she was only three at the time – as they let me out of the supply closet and led me into the courtyard, all strung up with twinkling lights. The table was laden with multi-coloured dishes: spiced pork falling off the bone, venison and juniper stew, caramelised onions, roasted garlic sweet potatoes, thick slabs of grainy bread, and a rainbow cake. May had coerced all the Reapers into attending in silly hats, even surly old Malcolm. We danced and ate all night. It might have been the greatest day of my whole life, if I hadn’t just spent two hours banging against the locked door of a dusty closet.
“It was the best birthday I ever had.” I stared blankly down the street, seeing smiling faces of those I loved instead of Petrified City, flashing like memories in the broken shards of glass.
“I’m not surprised,” Sydney said. “Ever since I met them, I feel lighter, as though they’re both lifting me off the ground.“
We grinned warily at each other, a small flicker of understanding darting between us.
I decided now was as good a time as any to try to forge an alliance since we shared something so important in common. “Sydney?”
“Yeah?”
“I just want to thank you. For everything you’ve done for my family. I couldn’t be with them in here.” My throat caught a little. “It’s nice to know they had someone like you looking out for them.”
“I’ve hardly done anything,” she said. “I’ve only known Alain and May a few weeks. They’ve been looking after themselves just fine.”
“Oh.” The news hit me harder than I expected. Jab, jab, right in the gut. Alain and May had really been on their own, without this strong woman guiding them. Alain and Sydney barely knew each other, and yet they seemed as though they’d known each other for years. Alain and I had never had a relationship like that. “Well, thank you anyway. Alain certainly looks happy with you.”
“I know he does.” Sydney’s hand flew to her stomach, a wistful smile stuck to her lips. “We’re having a baby.”
Oh. I’d almost forgotten about that somehow. Jab jab, the punches kept coming.
“That’s g-g-good.” I choked out the words. “Really it is. I’m so happy for you.”
“Oh, yeah, you look really happy.” Her voice was soft though, not like an accusation.
She was trying to console me because she sensed what I sensed too--that Alain had let me go. I searched around for something else to talk about. I didn’t want to discuss their baby anymore.
“What’s that?” I pointed ahead. A huge wall of petrified debris rose out of the earth, obscuring the horizon in front of us. It appeared to be made of mangled cars, pieces of buildings, and other unrecognisable bits of machinery, all coated in layer upon layer of petrification. Sections of the wall had crumbled away, like the ruins of a captured fortress.
“The wraith built it,” said Sydney. “At least, we believe they did, although we don’t know how they managed it, not being able to hold objects and all. Perhaps they somehow coerced residents of the Hub to build it for them, or maybe people stacked this stuff up in some hope it may trap the wraith inside. I just came into the Hub one day, and there it was. The petrification came later – the wraith do that.”
“I know,” I said. “It seems to be something to do with the energy they emit. We had to keep replacing components in their holding cells because the petrification would start to creep in.”
“Here in the city, it’s more than just grit in the equ
ipment – it’s a sign that a neighbourhood has passed into the hands of the wraith. People in the Hub were the first to die. All the smart people moved to the Rim to live in the slums.” She pointed down a side street. “I used to live in an apartment at the end of that block. But I got out of there as soon as the huskings started in earnest. Only the super wealthy stayed. They thought death was better than living in the slums.” She shrugged. “I guess they found out.”
We climbed over the mangled debris. My nails scraped against the bulbous stone protrusions as I picked my way through scrapped cars and mangled water pipes. All the while, my eyes remained glued to the brown earth on the other side.
The moment my feet stepped onto that soil, I understood where I was. It was the Reaper in me that had always felt such peace in a cemetery. Alain and I used to walk around Brookwood Hill at night, our fingers laced together, thick scarves around our necks to ward off the chill.
The place was practically unrecognisable. Where once a green garden of tranquil beauty had unfurled upon entering the gates, now all that greeted visitors was a dry dirt desert littered with broken stones. The scorched skeletons of once-great trees leered down at me, their branches reaching heavenward as though they prayed for salvation.
This was the epicentre of wraith activity. This was the birthplace of the wraith, the fortress from which they built an empire of terror, and the battleground where Sydney and Alain had somehow ended it all.
Not completely ended, I thought, watching Red float ahead of us, his legs dragging beneath the dirt and his head flicking back and forth between the broken stones.
We crossed the barren dirt of what had once been a lush lawn where small groups of goth kids gathered to picnic amongst the graves. My boots kicked up clouds of dust. I held the collar of my coat against my mouth and coughed.
How had she done it? How did she rid this place of the wraith? They still hadn’t told me, and I wasn’t sure if they would.
Red dawdled behind Harriet now, his head bent low, looking as dejected as it was possible for a wraith to look. It must’ve been hard for him to come here, with his mixture of memory and myth.
