And Jon was back in the labyrinth, back in the shadowy realm of his dreams, lost in darkness. And the demons danced all around.
And he kept going.
He dropped George behind the fallen log, then rose and fought again.
Later, Jon would learn that the battle had raged for only minutes. A quick raid and retreat.
But standing here in the fire, it seemed to last for eras. A lifetime of fire and blood.
And when it ended, when the guerrillas pulled back, the sun rose above a canopy of shattered branches and burnt leaves. Its light fell upon a scene of death and sacrifice.
They laid the dead side by side.
Private Dave Roberts, eighteen years old.
Corporal Denise Kummerow, nineteen years old.
Private Troy Lisboa, eighteen years old.
All three had stood before the enemy, laying down suppressive fire, never thinking to take cover, never thinking of anything but saving their friends.
All three could have survived. All three gave their lives.
Jon knelt before them, head lowered, tears falling. He closed their hands, and he covered them with blankets, and he collected their dog tags. He would always remember their names.
The platoon medic worked for hours, pulling bullets from the wounded, stitching wounds. Three soldiers were too hurt to continue. One was dying, three bullets in his stomach.
Jon approached his officer in the pale morning light.
"Sir, what do we do?" Jon said. "Do we go back to camp?"
Lieutenant Carter turned to stare at him. The officer's eyes were hard. Those eyes were boulders that would not fall before a storm.
"It was him, Private Taylor," the officer said. "The enemy who killed them. It was Ernesto. We must go on."
Jon licked his dry lips. "Sir, with all due respect, it was dark. They were wearing face paint. We couldn't see them, and—"
"It was him, Private. I would recognize the Iron Terror anywhere." Carter knelt and lifted his backpack. "We keep going! Until we find his camp. Up, platoon! On your feet!"
"But sir, the wounded—" Jon began.
"We'll put in a call for a helicopter. We'll leave a man behind to guard the wounded until evac." Carter stepped closer to Jon and softened his voice. "Do you want to stay with the wounded, Jon?"
Jon shook his head. "No, sir. If we keep going, I'm with you."
George limped toward them. "Me too!"
Jon shook his head. "George, no! You took a bullet to the leg."
"It ain't nothing, Jon," George said. "The medic pulled it right out. Thankfully I got a lot of fat on me. Was only a flesh wound. And those Insta-Stitch strips the medics use? Wonderful stuff! I'm as good as new."
But the giant was pale, fighting back the pain.
"George—" Jon began.
"I'm not leaving you." George clasped Jon's shoulder. "Not ever. Not even a tank could hold me back."
Jon hugged his friend, and tears stung his eyes. "Thank you, George."
Etty ran up toward them. "Hey, don't you dare hug without the entire Fireteam Symphonica!"
She laughed, but tears flowed down her cheeks, and the three friends stood together, crying as the dead lay beside them.
The platoon kept moving through the rainforest, heading deeper into the wild.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Magic Man
Night cloaked the city of Mindao, draping the shantytowns with black sin, but the inner city shone like a heart. Neon lights hid the rotting concrete, filling the dark sky with blazing luminescence like the trails of psychedelic fireflies. Mindao was a rotting corpse, buzzing with insects, but the heart still beat with the pulse of a cosmos.
Maria walked among these lights, mottled with green, red, blue, and gold. A thousand little lights had once guided her through the rainforest, but here shone a million neon faces, selling vice.
GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
CHEAP BEER CHEAPER GIRLS
MEET YOUR Bahay PRINCESS
SHABU PARADISE
BOYS NIGHT
MIDGET DANCERS
Maria walked in a daze. There were countless Earthlings in this city, all thirsty for beer, all hungry for flesh, all scared and homesick and desperate for forgetfulness. Thousands of bars lined the roads, luring them in, like angler fish luring their prey. And Maria knew these were traps. She knew that the bargirls of Bahay were like little spiders, trapping Earthling men in their nets, clinging to their arms, sucking their money like liquefied flesh from an ossified husk. The men of Bahay were fighting in the jungles or lay dead among ashes, but Bahay's daughters fought a different war, and inner Mindao was a neon battlefield.
Barefoot, dressed in rags, her body damp with landfill juices, Maria stepped onto a bright street corner, and she gazed upon a dizzying array of mottled lights in the night. People moved back and forth, smudges in the kaleidoscope, and Earthlings and Bahayans seemed almost as one, ghosts in the glowing forest.
And Maria began to sing.
She sang old songs. Songs her mother used to sing. Songs that had filled her village for generations, that had been sung even in the Philippines, the ancestral homeland of the Bahayans.
They were songs of golden beaches and swaying palm fronds. Songs of reed boats exploring blue seas. Songs of harvest. Songs of family and joy and love. They were songs alien to this neon underworld, but the music still beat in the heart of every Bahayan, from the bargirls in their fishnet stockings to the begging toddlers on the roadsides. Songs that perhaps even warmed the hearts of Earthlings, for these were songs that whispered of Earth.
As Maria sang, it began to drizzle, washing the filth off, purifying her, and the raindrops became part of her song.
A tuk tuk passed by—a brightly colored rickshaw with a rattling motor. The driver tossed her a coin. It clattered at Maria's feet. A few toddlers raced up, and she let them have it. She kept singing.
An Earthling soldier walked by, a bargirl on his arm. He stopped for a moment, listened, and tears filled his eyes. He placed a coin in her hand.
"Go, go!"
Several Bahayan women ran toward Maria on high heels, miniskirts swishing. Their fishnet stockings could not hide the bruises.
Prostitutes, Maria realized.
She stopped singing.
"This is our corner!" one of the girls said. "Go, go!"
"No!" Maria said. "It doesn't belong to you. Let me sing!"
One of the prostitutes drew a knife. "Don't fuck with me and my brothers, bitch!"
Maria frowned. Brothers?
They're boys, she realized. This was a dreamland, so different from the world she had known.
The boys began to beat Maria with their purses. She fled, splashing through puddles.
She reached another street corner, and she stood under neon lights, and she began to sing.
A passing soldier tossed her a coin.
But soon beggars approached her, beards long, teeth crooked and orange, eyes bloodshot—the telltale signs of shabu addiction.
"This is our spot!" they hissed, clawing at her. "Leave!"
They tried to bite, and Maria fled, fearing their diseased gums.
She sang for a moment here, a moment there, fleeing prostitutes and beggars, urchins and policemen. That night, she was the proud owner of three Earth dollars. That was worth over fifty Bahayan pesos. It was the richest she had ever been.
That night, Maria feasted.
She approached a roadside stall where a merchant sold adobong baboy—a traditional pork stew, simmered in vinegar and soy sauce, sprinkled with garlic and peppercorns that crunched between her teeth. It was real meat. Not even pulled from the landfills. It was Maria's best meal since leaving San Luna. For dessert, she ordered halo halo, a treat of crushed ice topped with syrup, sweet beans, and purple taro potatoes.
At the end of her feast, she felt stronger. Maybe even hopeful.
She even had a dollar left. It would buy her breakfast tomorrow. She planned to have panc
akes.
Yes, this was a city of decay, but also of such carnal pleasures.
That night, she found an alleyway, and she lay down to sleep.
In her dreams, she was trapped in the labyrinth again, but this time she was pulling a rickshaw. An unseen figure kept whipping her, shouting to go faster, faster! Maria ran, pulling her burden, but she could not find her way, and she plunged ever deeper into the neon maze, like a fly only further ensnaring itself in the web.
"Give me, give me, give me."
Claws grabbed her.
Maria opened her eyes and screamed.
It was the old man from before. He was pawing at her legs. He grinned at her, his one rotten tooth sticking out from black gums. He stared with one eye. The other was blinded, covered with cataracts, and his wispy hair fluttered like a corpse's hair.
Maria screamed.
"Leave me alone!"
"Need shabu, need shabu, give me, give me, give me…"
His fingers were gnarled but strong, and he pawed at her, reached into her pocket, and found her coin.
Maria lashed her knife.
She sliced off one of those knobby fingers.
The man screamed and fled. He kept the coin. He left the finger.
The next night, she walked the neon streets again. She passed bar after bar, the haunts of soldiers. Girls stood behind panes of glass, lining up onstage, parading their slender, underfed bodies, while Earthlings hooted and tossed money and bid on their favorites. Maria walked as pimps rumbled on mopeds, circling in closer and closer, louder and louder, herding more and more soldiers toward the bars. The Earthlings stumbled into the honey traps, not even aware they were being puppeteered.
Maria stood outside a whiskey bar, and she began to sing, and somebody tossed her a coin. But the owner emerged, shouting and waving a broken bottle.
"Stop stealing my customers' money!" he cried. "Go, go, puta! Go back to whatever bar you're from!"
"I'm not a bargirl," she said. "I come from a village far away."
The bartender burst out laughing. "They all do. Go, get lost!" He tossed the bottle at her. "You stray bitch."
She fled.
She made another dollar singing in an alleyway, but several Bahayan men circled her, wielding knifes. One was missing an eye, another the leg. War cripples. Unwanted. Starving and hungry and willing to kill for money. They circled her, closing in, and Maria knew she was beaten. She surrendered her coins.
Another night, she was forced to sing in shadows, driven here by competing buskers, beggars, and bargirls. A big Earthling approached her, and he ripped her clothes, shoved her down, and reached between her legs. She stabbed him in the belly and fled, screaming, but everyone around her just laughed. Their eyes shone with drugs and shell shock and lust.
She didn't eat that day.
Most days she didn't eat more than scraps.
Here in the city center was another type of landfill, this one of human garbage, and life here was just as hard. And just as ephemeral. Maria was turning eighteen tomorrow, but she didn't know if she'd even live that long.
Her birthday dawned gray and cold, and a hard rain fell all morning. News came in from the radios, leaking from kiosks across the streets. More bombings in the north. More villages wiped out. The Earthlings were on a rampage, a beast that could not be sated, unable to conquer the north, but able to inflict so much pain. So much death. The death toll kept climbing. Higher and higher. A hundred thousand dead Earthlings in the jungles. Millions of dead Bahayans across a sundering world. And here in Mindao, this southern sanctuary—a hive of rotting life.
Often, Maria thought that death would be kinder. Often, she envied her parents. Often, she drew her knife, contemplating.
It was on that gray rainy day, her eighteenth birthday, that the Magic Man came to her.
* * * * *
She was standing on a street corner between Pinoy Pleasure and The Manic Monkey, two nightclubs that were closed until evening. She sang for passersby. Traffic was light, but at night, when the neon lights hummed, this same corner became a battleground where bargirls, pimps, buskers, and beggars all battled for territory.
Right now, in the daylight, Maria stood alone. A three-legged cat curled around her feet, keeping her company. She had collected only a few pesos, not even enough to buy a bowl of adobo. If business did not soon improve, she would be eating from trash bins tonight, fighting the cats and urchins.
One passerby seemed a promising prospect. Maria perked up and sang louder. He was a Bahayan man, one of few who remained in the city. He seemed to be about fifty, perhaps too old to fight. But nothing about him seemed frail. He was muscular, and his goatee could not hide his square jaw. He wore a purple leisure suit, a frilly white collar, and gator-skin shoes. His black hair was slicked back and smelled like roses. Gemstone rings, golden chains, and dazzling earrings glittered across him. He was as bright as a bar. When he smiled at Maria, he revealed one golden tooth and many dazzling white ones.
"Beautiful!" The man clapped, and his golden bracelets chinked. "What a voice! Did you train in Mindao Opera House?"
"I'm not formally trained," Maria said. "These are songs we sang in our village while working in the paddies."
"Ah, a beautiful siren from the provinces!" The man in the purple suit bowed. "Wonderful. Wonderful!" He held out his hand, the fingers gleaming with rings. "I'm Rodrigo Reyes, but everyone calls me the Magic Man. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
It was the most anyone in Mindao had said to her. He was the first person to treat her kindly, not just yell or threaten or catcall. Maria shook his hand. His skin was very smooth, almost like a child's hand, rubbed with scented oils.
"Pleasure," she said. "I'm Maria Imelda de la Cruz."
He laughed. "Ah, you're both talented and charming! And, might I add, quite beautiful." He admired her. "Smooth mocha skin. Long shimmering black hair like silk. A graceful form. You are a true princess, Maria."
She was surprised. Most men in Mindao just shouted at her to show her dibdibs, and many reached out to grab them. But the Magic Man did not touch her, did not speak crudely.
"Thank you, Magic Man," she said. "Would you like me to sing you a song for a coin?"
He seemed rich enough to afford several coins, but Maria wouldn't push her luck. Right now, her stomach grumbling, she'd sing an entire opera for a bowl of rice.
"I will pay you many coins," the Magic Man said. "My girls earn two hundred thousand pesos a month."
Maria gasped. That was over three thousand Earth dollars.
A fortune.
But then she frowned. "What kind of girls?"
"Girls like you, Nini." The Magic Man smiled warmly. "Girls with talent. With beauty. Girls who can sing and entertain my guests. Do you know the Go Go Cowgirl?"
Maria shook her head. "I don't go to bars."
"Me neither." The Magic Man wrinkled his nose. "Most bars are places of decay and despair. But the Go Go Cowgirl is a different sort of establishment. A place of magic. Of imagination. A place where true talent meets true appreciation. I own the Go Go Cowgirl, and I would be honored if you sang on my stage."
Maria shrank away. "I'm not a…" She lowered her voice. "A prostitute."
The Magic Man laughed. "Of course not! You're far too wholesome and virginal. None of my girls are prostitutes. They are… princesses. They are jewels. And you, Nini, will shine brightest of them all."
Nini. The word brought back such memories. It meant little girl in Tagalog. It was what her mother used to call her.
"I…" She hesitated. "I don't know."
The Magic Man lost his smile. Concern filled his eyes. "Oh, Nini, I worry about you. I've seen many young virgins from the provinces. They wash up in Mindao every day. So many live on the streets. They end up addicted to shabu, infected with syphilis, starving and filthy like the rats. It's only a question of what will kill them first: disease, drugs, or a thief's knife. I would hate to see such misfortune befall you.
You're a rare talent, Maria de la Cruz. Don't hide in the mud. Let me polish you." He held out his hand. "Come, Maria. At the Go Go Cowgirl, a warm shower, hot meal, and soft bed await you. And most importantly—a stage to shine on."
Maria stared at the proffered hand. A soft hand, but one large and strong. A hand shining with jewels.
She looked up into the Magic Man's eyes. She saw kindness. She saw honestly.
She saw a life better than this.
She took his hand.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hilltop
The remains of the Lions platoon trudged through the jungle.
They were all silent. Dour. Staring ahead with dark eyes. Just yesterday, they had lost three friends. They knew that today, they might join them.
Everything hurt. Jon's leg was bandaged where a bullet had grazed him. His muscles cramped. His back ached under his heavy pack. The bugs kept biting him, and the heat kept pounding him.
But he trudged on. Climbing over boulders and coiling roots, pushing his way through curtains of vines. Seeking the enemy. Trapped in a dream.
"Hey, ballerina." Clay came walking toward Jon, a bandoleer across his chest. "Yeah, you."
Jon stared ahead at the jungle. "Get lost, Clay."
But the brute stepped closer, falling in line beside Jon. Grenades jangled across his belt like Christmas ornaments. He reeked of sweat and blood.
"You were on guard duty, weren't you?" Clay said. "When the slits raided our camp."
Jon said nothing. He climbed over a log and pushed vines aside.
"Hey, asshole!" Clay grabbed him. "I'm talking to you."
Jon shoved him aside. "Fuck off."
Hatred simmered in Clay's pale eyes. He sneered. "Yeah, it was you on guard duty. You let the slits sneak up on us. What happened? Your gun jammed? Or did you chicken out?"
"I don't report to you," Jon said, moving away. His heart pounded, but he refused to show fear.
"Three soldiers died because of you!" Clay grabbed Jon again, yanking him back. "Three good, brave warriors. They died because you failed to guard them."
The Earthling (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 1) Page 27
